March: Women’s History Month: Important Women In Mental Health Today

In the United States, March is Women’s History Month and is intended to highlight the contributions women have made throughout American history. This blog will focus on women in the mental health field who have made significant contributions over the past half-century. 

Insoo Kim Berg is a renowned Korean-American author and therapist who co-founded solution-focused brief therapy, or SFBT. Berg began to realize that many times when people are seeking help a lot of their time and energy is spent seeking treatment, meaning clients are still being impacted by their concerns. Through SFBT, a client attends short therapy sessions and the therapist is expected to help the client develop solutions instead of only focusing on their challenges. 

Dr. Marsha Linehan is the developer of dialectical behavior therapy, DBT, which was developed to help those suffering with suicidal behaviors and clients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. DBT is the only treatment that has been proven to be successful in multiple trials in several different independent research trials. 

Dr. Francine Shapiro is the original developer of EMDR which is short for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. EMDR is a form of psychotherapy that allows people to heal from distressing symptoms and emotions that are caused by traumatic or upsetting life experiences. 

Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman is the co-founder and President of The Gottman Institute and is a respected clinical psychologist. Dr. Gottman is an expert advisor on marriage, sexual harassment and assaults, domestic violence, gay and lesbian adoption, same-sex marriage, and parenting issues. 

Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett is an expert in Black mental health with an emphasis on anxiety disorders among Black women. Dr. Neal-Barnett is the founder and director of the Program for research on Anxiety Disorders among African Americans (PRADAA). Additionally, Dr. Neal-Barnett received the 2020 ADAA Jerilyn Ross Clinician Advocate Award. 

Source: RISE Services