Dave Aitken, PhD
Staff Psychologist
Approach to Care
I am dedicated to helping clients build new habits and live the life they have been avoiding. During my substance disorder rotation at a Veterans’ Administration hospital, I developed a keen awareness of the importance of helping clients clarify their personal values and vision of the kind of life they want to lead. I observed that the clients most likely to succeed in the substance abuse program were those who were able to construct a vision of life beyond their addictions and emotional problems. I also came to appreciate the power of habits, both good and bad. All the disorders I am familiar with involve thinking and behavioral habits that clients have learned in order to avoid emotional pain, but in the process of avoiding pain, clients avoid living their lives.
​​Methods of Treatment
I am a licensed psychologist with expertise in treating clients experiencing anxiety and mood disorders, including OCD, body-focused repetitive disorders, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, specific phobias, panic disorder, PTSD, somatic symptom disorder, ARFID, hoarding, and depression. I have experience administering and interpreting neuropsychological assessments and am also familiar with evidence-based treatments for borderline-personality disorder, eating disorders, and substance-abuse disorders. I work mostly with teens and adults, but also enjoy working with children.
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Cultural Sensitivity
As a practitioner of the bio-psycho-social model, I am also sensitive to cultural differences. How I behave in the world is influenced by my biological quirks and vulnerabilities and by how my life experience teaches me to think and behave, which is deeply formed by the culture I grew up in.
Education and Experience
I graduated from Stanford University with a BA in English Literature and, after traveling a long winding career road, got my PhD from Fielding Graduate University and completed my internship at the Veterans’ Administration Medical Center in Grand Island, Nebraska. I bring some life experience to my work, having toiled at many jobs, including dishwasher, factory worker, door-to-door salesman, army sergeant, private detective operative, technical writer, programmer, technical marketing manager, and technical publications manager.
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In my spare time, along with reading to increase my professional knowledge, I enjoy walking, reading detective novels, and phone calls and visits with my two adult children.