Crystal Ramirez

Crystal Ramirez serves as Adjunct Faculty for the Counseling Psychology and Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices programs. Crystal earned Bachelor’s Degrees in Sociology and Psychology at UCSB before completing Pacifica Graduate Institute’s MA Counseling Psychology program, and culminating in what is now the PhD in Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices program. She has been working in the mental health field since 2006, obtaining Marriage and Family Therapist licensure in 2010 and becoming a Clinical Supervisor in 2012. Some highlights include: working at Domestic Violence Solutions as the Children’s Program Clinical Coordinator and Lead Counselor, facilitating groups and individual therapy with men, women, and children; Assistant Manager at a psychosocial rehabilitation home working with people diagnosed with serious and persistent mental illness; Practitioner, Team Supervisor, and Regional Manager at Santa Barbara County Behavioral Wellness, overseeing several multidisciplinary teams providing mental health and substance use services to our community’s most vulnerable people; and Clinical Director at New Beginnings Counseling Center. In this role, she oversaw a comprehensive training program striving to fill gaps between clinician education and client need. Specifically, this aim involved providing counselors training to work with parents, children, and families from attachment and interpersonal neurobiological perspectives, and training to work with clients experiencing psychosis using depth psychological approaches. Dr. Ramirez’s dissertation explored the subjective experiences of people diagnosed with psychotic disorders receiving treatment in the public mental health system. This research has been presented at conferences domestically and internationally. Her aim to integrate the findings of this study has been to focus on deep listening, authenticity, and co-created healing in mental health treatment within community mental health settings. Dr. Ramirez also maintains a small private practice and teaches as Adjunct Faculty at Antioch University.