2024-2025 Contextually-Focused Dialectical Behavior Therapy Fellowship

E. Paul Holmes, PsyD Related Seminars and Products

Senior Lecturer; Director, Center for Contextual Behavioral Practices (CCBP)

The University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice

Paul Holmes is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. His focus is on advancing empirically-supported, contextually-based interventions such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). In addition to DBT, his fields of interest include Contextual Behavior Theory and Therapy, mindfulness and psychotherapy, chronic distress, and issues related to substance abuse.

Holmes teaches courses including Fundamentals of Behavioral Therapy: Contemporary Approaches, Dialectical Behavior Therapy: Intervening with Persons who Experience Chronic Distress, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

In addition to teaching, Holmes is also the founder and managing partner/clinical director of the Emotion Management Program, LLC in Orland Park, IL. He provides Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and DBT to client populations. He also conducts training workshops and clinical consultation to public and private mental health providers.

He was previously a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Chicago for twelve years.

After receiving his B.A. in Psychology from Olivet Nazarene University in Kankakee, Illinois, Holmes received his Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology in 1993. 

Tamara Sharifov, LCSW Related Seminars and Products

Licensed Clinical Social Worker | Scholar-Practitioner | Private Practice Owner

Tamara Sharifov is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with 13-years’ experience across diverse disciplines – including clinical psychology, academia, humanitarianism, conflict resolution, global affairs, and activism. She is an expert in the newest forms of psychotherapy – Third-Wave Contextual Behavioral therapies, including Contextual-Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - with additional expertise in PTSD, complex trauma, international armed-conflict, peacebuilding, and political unrest. 

Her experience spans facilitating full model DBT and contextual therapies across mental health contexts, medical missions to the Syrian-Lebanese border, co-founding a humanitarian emergency response NGO serving Syrian Refugees in Lebanon, teaching conflict-resolution to war-affected Armenian and Azerbaijani peacebuilders, acting as primary family therapist within intensive outpatient clinics (IOP), community mental health services in Chicago, private practice, and masters level lectureship. Tamara holds a Masters in Clinical Social Work from the University of Chicago School of Social Service, and a second Masters in Conflict Management and Resolution from the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, at the University of San Diego.

Currently, Tamara runs a psychology private practice in San Diego, California, consults, and has most recently joined a Global Mental Health Task Force influencing policy around mental health targets within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Tamara also acts as a lead clinical instructor teaching Third-Wave Contextual therapies to post-master’s mental health clinicians at the University of Chicago, Masters School of Social Work.

Karishma J Bhakta, LCSW Related Seminars and Products

Intake and Training Coordinator

Emotion Management Program, LLC

Karishma J Bhakta is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, an Ayurvedic Practitioner, and a Yoga Instructor. She is interested in Eastern based modalities of health and healing that emphasize the mind body connection. Karishma works alongside her mentor Dr. Paul Holmes at Emotion Management Program, LLC where she is the Intake and Training Coordinator and also practices Contextually Focused Dialectical Behavior Therapy. 

Karishma will also be teaching two courses at Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice; Fundamentals of Behavioral Therapy: Contemporary Approaches and Contextually Focused Dialectical Behavior Therapy. 

Karishma received a Bachelors in Psychology and Social Behavior from the University of California, Irvine in 2016 and a Masters (AM) in Clinical Social Work from the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice in 2019.