Treatment: Motivational Interviewing (MI)
Jay Davidson
As a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Child Study and Treatment Center, I am deeply inspired by the resilience of the youth we serve and by the collaborative spirit of our multidisciplinary teams. My work is grounded in curiosity, compassion, and respect for the complex systems that shape young people’s lives. My approach integrates evidence-based psychopharmacology with developmental and trauma-informed care, while always centering around the individual’s unique story and strengths. I value the relational and systemic dimensions of psychiatry: the interplay between family, community, and policy that influences recovery and growth. The multidisciplinary, relational model at CSTC reflects these values and continues to shape how I think about psychiatry: not only as a science, but as a deeply human endeavor.
Katherine Seldin
Dr. Katherine Seldin is a faculty member and licensed clinical psychologist in the University of Washington’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Before joining this department, Dr. Seldin completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Washington, residency at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and fellowship at the University of Ilinois Chicago.
Dr. Seldin specializes in delivering evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapies (CBTs), including mindfulness-based and exposure-based psychotherapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). Her research interests include mood disorders, sleep, digital intervention, emotional impulsivity, and ecological momentary assessment methodology.
Justin Tauscher
Dani Dahyeon Kang
Dr. Dahyeon Kang is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She earned her doctoral degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where her work focused on the etiology of alcohol and substance use disorders through multimodal research methods, including alcohol administration, neuroimaging, transdermal biosensors, and ecological momentary assessments. At the University of Washington’s Department of Psychiatry, Dr. Kang investigates how individual and social factors interact to influence alcohol and cannabis use behaviors.
Connor McCabe
As a clinical and quantitative psychologist, my work bridges statistical practice and psychological theory to better identify for whom, under what conditions, and why substance-related health disparities are greatest across development. My substantive research seeks to understand how individual differences in stress and developing self-regulation shape substance use and disorder from adolescence through young adulthood, and how these associations explain substance use disparities among sexual and gender minoritized communities. Stemming from this work, my methodological research is centered on improving the analysis and interpretation of nonlinear effects spanning parametric and non-parametric methodologies.
Christina Warner
Christina Warner, MD (she/her) is the attending psychiatrist for the Early Psychosis Clinic and Partial Hospitalization Program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She has clinical expertise in mood disorders, psychosis spectrum disorders, First Episode Psychosis, chronic suicidality, mood dysregulation, neurodiversity, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
Dr. Warner is a Washington native and graduate of the Seattle Public School system with a vested interest in expanding access to high quality mental health care in her community.
Adam Kuczynski
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.
Sheena Friesen
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.
