Dr. Connor Gallik, PhD, is the attending psychologist for the Adolescent Program on the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Unit at Seattle Children’s Hospital and Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at University of Washington.
Prior to joining the staff and faculty at Seattle Children’s/UW, Dr. Gallik completed his graduate education at the University of Connecticut with an emphasis in child and adolescent clinical psychology. He completed his clinical internship at Pacific University’s Psychology and Comprehensive Health Clinic and went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical psychology at Seattle Children’s Hospital with an emphasis in DBT and inpatient care.
His research focuses on understanding factors related to the mental health and wellbeing of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) TGD youth and evidence-based practice on inpatient units. Clinically, he is interested in working with children, adolescents, and their families, with a focus on TGD youth. Dr. Gallik also provides training in TGD affirming care for mental health and medical professionals and speaks to community audiences about supporting transgender youth.
I am a trained Behavioral Psychologist with a PhD in Health & Human Performance. The main goal of my work is to reduce substance-related harms and improve quality of life for people experiencing problems related to their substance use. I work closely with community members who use drugs to inform my line of research and address key needs identified. My primary appointment is at the Harm Reduction Research and Treatment (HaRRT) Center within the UW School of Medicine and hold an Affiliate Faculty appointment within the School of Public Health. My aim is to adapt, refine, and disseminate harm reduction programs through digital health interventions to empower individuals and ameliorate substance-related harms.
Areas of clinical practice:
SLU at Fred Hutch Cancer Center and UW Diabetes Institute
My passion and background are working with individuals with serious medical conditions, primarily cancer but also other chronic health conditions. I split my clinical time between FHCC and UW Diabetes Institute. I also passionate about conducting research about existential distress and post-traumatic growth in oncology.
Clinical Approach:
I practice an interpersonal approach to psychotherapy, rather than solely structured one. I enjoy building a collaborative relationship with my patients to identify goals to work on in therapy. I really want our time together to be worthwhile. There’s only so much time and energy someone with a major illness has. I am a big fan of the spoon theory and don’t want to be wasting their spoons. I love to use humor, metaphor and stories. I also find it important to provide space and opportunities to discuss heavier topics related to prognosis, morality, grief and legacy. I enjoy supporting patients with meaning making and trying to answer difficult questions such as “What’s the meaning of all this? How can we help patients live well with what life is remaining?”
Personal History:
I have a small, supportive family with my partner and our dog. Growing up, I was close with my grandparents. My grandfather who lived with Parkinson’s disease for most of my life. Parkinson’s has a lot of physical symptoms, but also mood symptoms. Additionally, he also lived with chronic melanoma and prostate cancer. His health had a large impact on his life, our family, and how I now view quality of life during treatment and at end of life. He always faced challenges and changes in his functioning with humor and creative to continue to engage in active he enjoyed like travel, golf and a fancy meal. Around the time I started graduate school for psychology, he passed away. His legacy influenced me work with people who were living with serious medical conditions or acquired new disability. I want to help patients live with it instead of against it.
I am a bilingual, bicultural psychiatrist with interests in cultural psychiatry, psychotherapy, trauma-informed care, and improving quality of care and safety for our patients/families that receive care in a language other than English and other underserved communities.
I joined the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry faculty at the University of Washington in Fall of 2022 after completing my Child and Adolescent Psychiatry training here at the University of Washington at Seattle Children’s Hospital and General Psychiatry SUNY Upstate Medical University, with emphasis in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Trauma Focused- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
I am an Acting Assistant Professor and licensed clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. I received my Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley and completed by postdoctoral training at the University of Washington. I am also a consultant for multiple teaching and implementation projects aimed helping community mental health providers deliver effective evidence-based trauma-informed care.
My career goal is to help survivors of complex trauma learn to thrive. My research and clinical work explores how mobile technology, principles of evidence-based practice, and our sociocultural context can be used to help survivors of trauma and their communities recover faster. My work specifically emphasizes recovery from complex racial trauma and other forms of identity-based trauma.
My clinical and research interests are strongly anchored in efforts to improve the quality of life and coping of children and adolescents with chronic illness. As a pediatric psychologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, I provide assessment and intervention services to patients within the Heart Failure and Heart Transplant Program. My role involves assisting with issues such as adherence to medical regimens, teaching long-term stress reduction strategies to families, and empowering adolescents as they move toward adulthood and assume greater responsibility for their care. I am currently involved in QI projects including screening for psychological coping and risk factors as well as to help prepare our patients for transition to adult transplant programs.
My clinical and research work focus on ways to improve care for children with complex neurodevelopmental and behavioral concerns, especially in the context of prenatal substance exposures and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD).
Current projects include developing training to reduce stigma and improve accurate retrospective screening for prenatal alcohol exposure; examining factors influencing response to the Families Moving Forward Program for FASD; and, evaluating the clinical utility of the proposed diagnosis ND-PAE.
Dr. Walukevich-Dienst (hear my name) is a licensed clinical psychologist and an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington.
Her research is focused on identifying psychosocial and contextual factors associated with alcohol and cannabis misuse and co-use among young adults, including social influences (e.g., romantic partners, use partnerships), affect management motives, co-occurring mental health concerns, and high-risk substance use events and contexts.
Dr. Walukevich-Dienst aims to leverage this information to develop and test innovative, technology-informed prevention and intervention efforts to disseminate in real world settings.
She also provides psychotherapy to patients at the University of Washington’s Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic and provides supervision and training to psychology graduate students and psychiatry residents in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
Link to Dr. Walukevich-Dienst’s CV.
