2025-2026 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. 

Mary Emma Cook Related Seminars and Products

Emotion Management Program, LLC

After receiving bachelor's degrees in Psychology and Sociocultural Anthropology at Brigham Young University, Mary worked for a time in residential treatment, then pursued a Master of Arts in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. Having a special interest in how our basic need to belong and matter shapes behavior, Mary then shifted her focus to exploring these questions in clinical training to help people develop a sense of meaning and agency within the context of a therapeutic relationship.

Mary received her Master of Arts in clinical social work from the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. There, she focused her studies and practice on contextual behavioral therapies and found that the Chronic Distress model, developed by Paul Holmes, PsyD, resonated deeply with her personal experience and beliefs about relational models of healing. 
 
Outside of her therapeutic work, Mary can be found practicing yoga, learning more about behavioral training with dogs, volunteering at the shelter, visiting beaches, and catching up on her latest shows.