Leveraging Duality: Using Humor with Borderline Clients

See Dr. Shapiro's professional biography here.


Wright Institute Clinical Psychology faculty member Dr. Lauren Shapiro is conducting research on the use of humor as an intervention with clients diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

“From what I’ve learned about borderline clients, something they struggle with is integrating multiple seemingly contradictory thoughts or feelings,” Shapiro explained. “For example, they often engage in splitting—they’ll undervalue someone, and then switch to overvaluing them.”

Since the essence of humor is the presence of two contradictory meanings simultaneously, Shapiro wondered if humor could be an effective tool with borderline clients. Anecdotally, she had heard from therapists about using humor in sessions, but she couldn’t find very much if anything written about it in the literature.

Lessons from Darkness

Click here to read Dr. Anita Barrows's professional bio.


Longtime Clinical Program Faculty Member, Dr. Anita Barrows, has published one of her poems in an anthology called Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, Grayson Books, Hartford, Connecticut (2017), and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, which is a major national prize for an individual poem.

Here’s the Poem:

Lessons from Darkness

"I’m afraid of the darkness, and the hole in it,
and I see it sometime of every day!"
- Martin Luther, in Luther

Does losing a parent help us develop gratitude?

A recent Wright Institute Clinical Psychology Program graduate, Dr. Nathan Greene, recently published an article with Elephant Journal exploring how the experience of losing his mother to cancer when he was a teen shaped his development as a more grateful person. This experience and his article serves as a platform for him to share to a broad audience his dissertation research findings about parental loss, gratitude, and resilience. Click here to read Dr. Greene's article.


Click here to learn more about the Wright Institute’s Doctor of Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.) program.
Click here to learn more about the Wright Institute’s Master of Counseling Psychology program.

Faculty Members Active in Asian American Psychological Association

Wright Institute faculty members Alicia del Prado, PhD and Ulash Thakore-Dunlap, MFT hold leadership roles within the Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA), a national organization dedicated to Asian American psychology and mental health issues and training and education of Asian American mental health professionals.

In 2016, del Prado, a faculty member in the Wright Institute’s Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.) program, co-founded the AAPA division on Asian Americans with Multiple Heritages. Recently, she was elected chair of the division’s inaugural committee.

Congratulations to Wright Institute Clinical Psychology program graduate Dr. Anna Tuazon who ranked #1 in the Philippine Psych Board Exam!!

Click here to learn more about the Wright Institute’s Doctor of Clinical Psychology (Psy.D.) program.
Click here to learn more about the Wright Institute’s Master of Counseling Psychology program.

Healing Through Creative Expression

Chetna Mehta, a 2017 graduate of the Wright Institute's Master's in Counseling Psychology program, has combined her passions for art, spirituality and psychology to devise a personalized style of healing.

"I call myself a mystic because I am spiritual in my approach to mental health," Chetna explained. "I am a mixed-media artist, so I founded a brand that incorporates affirmation, spiritual study and evidence-based psychological techniques to create sacred spaces for creative and community-oriented healing."

While attending the Wright Institute, Chetna started crafting affirmations for herself to help manage the stress of graduate school and the recent presidential election. "I would draw visual affirmations to tell myself what I longed to hear. As I shared these art pieces, I learned that they resonated with people," Chetna said, adding that she started a product line of cards with these visual affirmations.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

If you or someone you know are seeking support for domestic violence or other family struggles, call the Family Paths 24-hour Parent Support & Resource Hotline at 800-829-3777 or the La Casa de las Madres 24-hour Crisis Support Hotline at 877-\0xAD503-1850.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. One in four Americans is directly affected by family violence, and sexual harassment and assault are common (as was highlighted by the recent #metoo campaign). At the Wright Institute, we believe that a strong Marriage and Family Therapist must have a solid understanding of how to attend to and support clients who are impacted by domestic violence.

Community service benefitting Asian American Communities

Read Dr. del Prado's biography here.


Congratulations to Dr. Alicia del Prado for being selected as the winner of the 2017 Asian American Psychological Association Okura Community Leadership Award! The Okura Community Leadership Award recognizes exemplary leadership and community service that benefits the field of Asian American Psychology and Asian American communities. Dr. del Prado received the award in Las Vegas at the annual AAPA Convention.

Get to know Stephanie Chen, Ph.D. - Full-Time Faculty, Counseling Psychology Program

See Dr. Chen's professional biography here.


Shayna Quilty (SQ): How did you first hear about the Wright Institute, and what inspires you to stay?
Stephanie Chen (SC): I’m a newbie. I was searching for another opportunity to teach and increase my teaching capacity. Dr. Torrez was a classmate of mine in graduate school, so I talked with her and it made me even more interested in the Wright Institute. The school has a great reputation, and I fell in love with the students, faculty, and administration after I taught my first class in the fall of 2015.

Student Spotlight: Lucy Moore's field placement at the Rainbow Community Center

Lucy Moore, a second-year student in the Wright Institute's Counseling Psychology Master's Program, is completing her field placement at the Rainbow Community Center in Concord, CA. The organization is the only LGBTQ+ community organization providing mental health services to teenagers and adults in all of Contra Costa County. It offers support to local high schools' Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) as well as one-on-one mentoring and internal referrals to case management, counseling and therapy.

"I am excited to work here because there is definitely not enough support for the LGBTQ community here because there is less resistance to hetero-normativity in Contra Costa County compared to Oakland and San Francisco," Moore said.