The Road to TBC for CBT
– From Nancy Gordon, Founder
My interest in mental health issues actually began when I was in High School where I volunteered with the State Psychiatric Hospital and with a Crisis Call-in Center. This is where I learned that I wanted to help people who were struggling with mental illness. My quest to provide exceptional, quality mental health care started with the phenomenal training I received during my MSW education and internships at U. Denver, Simmons and McLean Hospital in 1983-1985. There, I was exposed to the best clinical education, and cutting edge programs and supervisors. For the next 20 years I had the good fortune to be able to continue to grow professionally while at the Brattleboro Retreat in Vermont, working alongside some of the most remarkable doctors, social workers and psychologists I’ve ever met. Due to the liberal continuing education funding we were allowed, and because the Retreat was a renowned center for providing continuing education programs I was privy to be able to enhance my learning to a degree that was unmatched by most of my peers. In 1996 I attended a one-day orientation to Dialectical Behavior Therapy that was being provided in an adolescent state-run program in Massachusetts. At that time, I was Clinical Director of a large adolescent residential program and frankly, we weren’t having as much success as I would have liked with the treatment we were providing. Well, I was hooked. It was clear to me that not only was this treatment model effective, but it also matched my philosophy, style and beliefs. It took me 2 years to convince the administration that it would be worthwhile to pay the thousands of dollars to train a team but we finally got approval and 6 of us set out for the Intensive Training in DBT, finishing in 1998. This was early on in the dissemination of DBT (Marsha Linehan had just published her books in 1993) and I started one of the first adolescent Residential DBT programs in the country.
In 2005 I was recruited to the Tampa Bay area to manage a large child and adolescent State Inpatient Psychiatric Program. My professional journey to Florida was, let’s say challenging. It was clear to me that the clinical knowledge and advances that were more prevalent in New England were slower to come to Florida. Hardly anyone knew anything about evidence-based treatment or DBT so I started my campaign to educate and implement DBT and other evidence-based treatments here. I implemented DBT programs, provided workshops and trained staff in every setting I’ve managed since moving to Florida, (the SIPP program, a program for incarcerated girls, and a community mental health center). Finally, in 2010 I decided the time was right for me to launch my own clinic and I started Tampa Bay Center for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Inc. We have grown to a staff of 6 therapists and 3 graduate students, and now provide all kinds of models of evidence-based practices, supervision, workshops and trainings. We are the first DBT program in the state to have a DBT®-Linehan Board Certified Clinician, are working towards program certification, and are a training center for those who want to learn evidence-based treatment. And the best thing……………we are continuing to learn!!!! My staff and I attend and participate in research and continuing education from some of the top trainers in the country in order to provide our clients the highest quality of care that is available. I am also providing a lot of DBT training, consultation and supervision around the country to individuals and organizations who want to train in and implement DBT into their practice or programs. I also teach the Qualified Supervision Class for the State of Florida. My current passions are to focus on doing what I can to train clinicians in evidence based assessment and treatment of suicide so as to play a role in reducing the ever-increasing suicide rates and increase the accessibility to this very effective treatment to people who are marginalized due to income limitations, cultural and other issues and have difficulty accessing treatment. That is why I do a lot of volunteer work with the Florida Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers and am on the Board of Directors of the Florida Borderline Personality Disorder association.
Thank you for allowing me to share my journey and I invite you to read more on my website, and join us on this quest….to receive or provide exceptional quality evidence-based mental health care to consumers and their families.
OUR MISSION:
To improve the quality of life for individuals and their families by providing access to effective, evidence-based behavioral health treatment.
OUR VISION:
To provide exceptional training, consultation and therapy to clients, therapists and community agencies.
STATEMENT OF COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVITY:
TBC for CBT abides by our Statement of Commitment to Diversity and Inclusivity for clients and staff. As mental health providers, we understand that every employee and client we work with is unique. Each one of us has multiple identities that make us distinctive; these identities might include racial, cultural, religious, sexual, gender, age, ability, faith, and many other dimensions. Indeed, it is the combination of all these identities that makes each one of us different!
We also appreciate that every one of us lives and functions within a broader social context, and that our social context can both support and hinder our well-being. We know that events that happen in society impact us as individuals. We understand that, at times, some identities are de-valued by our culture, as happens with racism, sexism, genderism, ageism, heterosexism, ableism, etc. These experiences influence how we feel about ourselves and the world around us.
At TBC for CBT, we invite conversations about these issues because we understand how critical they are to all our emotional health. We want you to know that we honor difference and are committed to supporting social justice. Our values and ethics call us to support equality and human dignity, and to challenge prejudice and discrimination. TBC for CBT is dedicated to making the work and treatment environment a safe, respectful, and compassionate place for everyone who walks through our doors.