Dr. Samantha J. Reznik (she/her) is an Assistant Professor and licensed clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She is the Director for Seattle Children’s Psychosis Program, providing holistic mental health care to support individuals with psychosis ages 13-21 to reach goals aligned with personal values and passions. With a commitment to research, training, and clinical leadership in serious mental illness (SMI), she strives to create meaningful change in mental health services, ensuring individuals receive the recovery-oriented care they deserve.
As an investigator at the Supporting Psychosis Innovation through Research, Implementation, & Training (SPIRIT) Center, she focuses on dissemination and implementation research to increase access to and quality of care for individuals with SMI and other underserved populations. She currently supports the Central Assessment for Psychosis (CAPS) project to increase access to psychosis assessment and reduce barriers to early psychosis treatment engagement across Washington. She is also committed to advancing SMI and health service psychology training and is actively involved in related national service, including serving as the Chair-Elect of the APA SMI/SED Subsection and founding member and Co-Chair of SMI Future of Academia, Training, and Education (FATE) committee to advance doctoral psychology training in SMI.
Dr. Reznik earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Arizona with a focus on psychophysiology and intervention science. Her clinical training included a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)-funded Underserved Track clinical internship at University of Kansas Medical Center as well as an advanced clinical fellowship in rehabilitation and recovery for SMI at VA San Diego Healthcare System/University of California San Diego. She was previously a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and investigator with the Advancing Early Psychosis Intervention Network in Texas (EPINET-TX) project.
Caitlin Courshon, PhD (she/her), is an attending psychologist for the Behavior and Attention Management (BAM) Program within Outpatient Psychiatry at Seattle Children’s Hospital and an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. Dr. Courshon has clinical expertise in the treatment, consultation, and assessment of children with disruptive behaviors and their families, including, but not limited to, neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, and disruptive behavior disorders. Her clinical work integrates evidence-based treatments, including parent behavior management training (PBMT), cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT).
Dr. Courshon’s current academic interests focus on researching clinical outcomes of PBMT programs and contributing to ongoing program development to expand services for caregivers navigating challenges related to home-school communication and disruptive behaviors in school settings. She is deeply committed to helping children improve their behaviors, empowering caregivers and educators to enhance their self-efficacy in supporting children with disruptive behaviors, and fostering healthy, safe, and inclusive environments across home, school, and community settings.
I am a faculty member and licensed clinical psychologist in the University of Washington’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Before joining this department, I completed my Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Purdue University, residency at the University of Washington, and fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.
My research interests primarily center around romantic relationship functioning and personality disorder (PD) measurement. My line of PD research centers around how the use of a trait-based, dimensional approach to assessing and measuring PDs may increase construct validity, reliability, and diagnostic accuracy relating to PDs. My romantic relationship research centers around how romantic relationship functioning and interpersonal behaviors are associated with psychopathology diagnoses and symptoms.
As a clinician, I specialize in treating suicidality and self-harm using comprehensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy; in treating PTSD using Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure; and in treating anxiety-related disorders using exposure therapies like Exposure and Response Prevention for OCD and Exposure for Social Anxiety. I am also passionate about providing couples’ therapy.
I am a clinical psychologist with specialized training in serious mental illness and inpatient psychiatric care. I earned my PhD from the University of Washington in 2023 after completing my pre-doctoral internship at the same institution, training in serious mental illness and inpatient care at Harborview Medical Center and psycho-oncology at Fred Hutch Cancer Center. My research focuses on developing novel technologies to support patients with serious mental illness, improve the provision of psychological interventions in the inpatient setting, and more efficiently and effectively train future generations of mental health clinicians. I also work as a psychologist on UW’s long-term civil commitment inpatient psychiatry program.
Hello! I’m the medical director for the Long Term Civil Commitment Units at the Center for Behavioral Health and Learning. This is a new program as of July 2024 and I am excited to help get it off the ground. I completed my medical school training at the University of Cincinnati, then residency at Oregon Health & Science University, then addiction psychiatry fellowship at UW, then worked at the Puget Sound VA for five years and Providence Swedish for six years prior to starting at UW. I’m thrilled to be part of the team here and looking forward to this next chapter in my career.
I am currently the Medical Director at the Garvey Institute Center for Neuromodulation and am providing leadership to help grow our portfolio in the area of Neuromodulation and Interventional Psychiatry. Before coming to the UW, I was the Muriel Harris Chair of Geriatric Psychiatry and Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at UCLA. While at UCLA, I held many administrative, clinical and teaching leadership positions including serving as Medical Director of Inpatient Geriatric Psychiatry, Chief of Staff of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Founding Faculty of the UCLA Neuromodulation Division, Medical Director of the ECT and Interventional Psychiatry Program, among others.
I recently became Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of ECT and Related Therapies, the official publication of the International Society of ECT and Neurostimulation. My research projects have included investigating various neuromodulation and interventional therapies and developing novel educational programs and curricula. I have an abiding interest in mentoring and helping faculty at the start of their careers and a commitment to fostering the advancement of women and underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in academic medicine.
My work focuses on the development, dissemination, and implementation of tools for the assessment and treatment of autism spectrum disorder. I am also interested in transdiagnostic interventions for autism spectrum disorder to increase efficacy for individuals and families, as well as access to care. My clinical pursuits include conducting diagnostic evaluations for autism for youth of all ages, as well as running groups and classes for autistic individuals and their families.
Sheena Friesen, PhD (she/her), is the attending psychologist for the Child Program on the inpatient Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Unit at Seattle Children’s Hospital and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. She has clinical expertise in disruptive behavior disorders, comprehensive assessment, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Exposure Therapies, Parent Training, and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Dr. Friesen’s research interests broadly focus on advancing knowledge of least restrictive interventions in acute and complex care contexts, trauma-informed care, and interventions designed to address children’s disruptive behavior problems. She has collaborated on and co-led efforts to design and implement a multi-tiered, Modified Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (M-PBIS) model of care aimed at increasing positive behavior interventions, reducing restraint and PRN use, and ameliorating racial gaps in care delivery.
Dr. Friesen received her Ph.D. in School Psychology from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. She completed her pre-doctoral internship training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Kennedy Krieger Institute and went on to complete her postdoctoral fellowship in acute care and clinical psychology at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
