Compassion Focus Therapy

Dr. Amanda Roberts

Psychologist, PhD Clinical Psychology, Masters in Marriage Family Therapy

Dr. Amanda Roberts has close to 40 years of experience in the mental health field and 27 years of deep immersion and expertise in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy, EMDR. She is also trained in hypnosis and a variety of mind-body modalities. She has a growing interest in the neurobiological basis of effective psychotherapies and, in particular, neuroplasticity. She studied Psychology at Harvard University, earned a Bachelors in Political Science with an emphasis in International Relations from the University of California Berkeley, has a Master’s degree in Marriage Family Therapy from the University of San Francisco and earned her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CIIS. At CIIS the curriculum marries eastern philosophy and religion with traditional western empirical psychological training. Her dissertation was a quality of life study on the use of laughter and humor in the treatment of cancer survivors. Her specialty is working with the psychological ramifications of medical issues, a branch of psychology known as Behavioral Medicine or Health Psychology. She has successfully worked with treatment resistant medically unexplained symptoms as well as chronic migraines, pain, cardiac, auto-immune, eating disorders and cancer. An additional specialty is in the treatment of recent traumatic/adverse events with ongoing traumatic stress. Dr. Roberts also provides clinical consultation to other EMDR clinicians individually and in groups remotely via Zoom. Dr Roberts is an EMDR International Association Approved Consultant and has been a Trauma Recovery Humanitarian Assistance Programs approved consultant, an EMDR trainer in early intervention and former leader of the Western Massachusetts Trauma Recovery Network, a community disaster response program. She has conducted R-TEP G-TEP trainings around the US for trauma clinicians and has been instrumental in setting up the Trauma Response Network in Britain formed in 2017 in response to terrorism and mass casualty events. She advised them on logistical and clinical issues. Dr. Roberts has an enduring and lifelong passion for global and international humanitarian issues. She completed three pre-doctoral internships at Stanford’s Drug and Alcohol Clinic, Stanford’s Counseling and Psychological Services and San Mateo County Mental Health Services and two post-doctoral internships.One in a national employee assistance program and another at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Center Medical school, ranked among the top ten medical schools in the United States. She worked in the Behavioral Medicine Clinic at the University of Massachusetts with rotations throughout cardiac and oncology, pain and bariatric surgery services. She has served on a mobile psychiatric crisis unit, in a full-service hospital emergency room, community mental health clinics and outreach, inpatient, general outpatient and two pain clinics. She has provided trainings/workshops nationally and internationally on a variety of mental health topics and was on the United Nations working team of EMDR therapists acting to introduce EMDR Therapy as a modality to be used in humanitarian programs around the world. More recently, as an EMDR ambassador, she facilitated, an engagement with the World Bank in the Philippines and has been involved in various leadership capacities. She launched a global initiative in 2018 called PRISE, a curriculum designed for paraprofessionals to deliver resliency training in resource poor areas of the world. https://www.prisehealth.org/ She is a consummate researcher and launched the world’s first EMDR clinical trial looking at the efficacy of the EMDR Group Traumatic Episode Protocol, GTEP with an oncology population. This protocol also has applicability to other medical/psychological populations. She holds herself to the highest standards of excellence and expects the same from others.

Online Compassion Focus Therapy therapists in Arizona

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