Bios of

Wendy and Joan

Wendy T. Behary, LCSW

With 25+ years of professional experience and advanced level certifications, Wendy Behary is the founder and director of The Cognitive Therapy Center of New Jersey and The Schema Therapy Institutes of NJ-NYC-DC. She has been treating clients, training professionals and supervising psychotherapists for more than 20 years. Wendy was on the faculty of the Cognitive Therapy Center and Schema Therapy Institute of New York (until the Institutes merged in 2012), where she trained and worked with Dr. Jeffrey Young since 1989. She is a founding fellow and consulting supervisor for The Academy of Cognitive Therapy (Aaron T. Beck’s Institute).  Wendy served as the President of the Executive Board of the International Society of Schema Therapy (ISST) from 2010-2014 and served as the Training and Certification Coordinator for the ISST Executive Board from 2008-2010. She is currently the chair of the Schema Therapy Development Programs Sub-Committee for the ISST.

Wendy Behary has co-authored several chapters and articles on Schema Therapy and Cognitive Therapy. She is the author of an international bestselling book, “Disarming the Narcissist…”  translated in 15 languages. The Third Edition was recently released.  Wendy has a specialty in treating narcissists and the people who live with and deal with them. As an author and an expert on the subject of narcissism, she is a contributing chapter author of several chapters on schema therapy for narcissism for professional readers. She lectures both nationally and internationally to professional and general audiences on schema therapy, narcissism, interpersonal relationships, anger, and dealing with difficult people. She receives consistent high praise for her clear and articulate teaching style and her ability to bring the therapy to life through dramatic demonstrations of client interactions in the treatment room.

Her work industry business speaking engagements focus on interpersonal conflict resolution. Her private practice is primarily devoted to treating narcissists, partners/people dealing with them, and couples experiencing relationship problems.

Joan Farrell, Ph.D.

Joan Farrell, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and an advanced level Schema Therapist and Trainer/Supervisor. She co-directs the Schema Therapy Institute Midwest-Indianapolis. The Indianapolis Center specializes in Group Schema therapy. Joan is an Adjunct Professor in Clinical Psychology at Purdue University (IUPUI) where she supervises the practice of clinical psychology graduate students. She was a clinical professor at Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM), in Psychiatry for 25 years. She is Research and Training director of the IUSM/Eskenazi Community Mental Health Center for Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment & Research. She was the elected Executive Board Member, Coordinator for Training & Certification of the International Society for Schema Therapy (ISST) 2012-2018. She chairs the ISST Training & Certification Advisory Board. She was honored by the membership with an Honorary Lifetime membership in 2018.

Her work with Ida Shaw integrated their complementary cognitive and experiential treatment approaches with social learning and developmental psychology theory to develop a group treatment model for Schema Therapy (ST). Influenced by their 30+ years of clinical experience and by the work of Jeff Young, they adapted ST interventions and limited reparenting to a group model and developed uniquely group interventions to accomplish ST goals (Farrell & Shaw, 1994, 2012). They first established the group model for outpatients in a specialty clinic for BPD at the IUSM outpatient clinic. This program was awarded an Indiana Governor’s Showcase Award in Mental Health. They went on to develop an inpatient ST program that combines individual and group modalities and directed a dedicated BPD unit for ten years at a university affiliated psychiatric hospital in Indianapolis. Their group model has been successfully implemented in community mental health with a Schema Therapy Program with an enrollment of 200 patients with BPD. Their GST model was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial (Farrell, Shaw & Webber, 2009) with a grant award from the US National Institute of Mental Health) and in two inpatient pilot study (Reiss, Lieb, Arntz, Shaw & Farrell, 2013). Both studies demonstrated strong effects in reduced BPD symptoms and improved global function as well as high recovery rates. Joan is co-Principal investigator with Arnoud Arntz, Ph.D for an international trial to further evaluate the GST model.

She has written three books and published a DVD series with Ida Shaw: Group Schema Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: A Step-by-step Treatment Manual with Patient Workbook, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012; DVD Set: Group Schema Therapy: Innovative Treatment for Personality Disorders IVAH, 2012; The Schema Therapy Clinician’s Guide: A Complete Resource for Building and Delivering Individual and Group Integrated Mode Treatment Programs, Wiley 2014; Experiencing Schema Therapy from the Inside-Out: A Self-practice/Self-reflection Workbook for Therapists, Guilford, 2018. Chapters on their work appear in a number of major references in Schema Therapy including: Advances in ST (2010) and the Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of ST, Wiley 2012.

Joan has given keynotes, symposia and Master Clinician workshops on GST internationally for over 20 years. She gives training in individual and group ST around the world (20 countries to date). She receives outstanding evaluations for her enthusiastic and collaborative teaching style that includes demonstrations and group role play experiences for participants.

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