Denise O'Leary

Denise has practised as a therapist in drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres in Thailand since 2020, following years of therapy work in Vancouver, Canada. She holds a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology, is a Certified Canadian Counsellor (CCC), and is a member of the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association, with a clinical focus on addiction and trauma.

Denise is an EMDRIA Certified Therapist and an EMDRIA Approved Consultant-in-Training, and she leads Jintara's three EMDR therapists, all listed on the EMDR International Association directory, for a house of no more than ten clients. She is trained in Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for PTSD and listed on the CPT provider roster, the approach behind the PTSD treatment she leads, one of the independently verified clinical credentials the centre sets out in full. Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a structured trauma therapy that uses guided eye movements to help the brain reprocess painful memories so they stop driving present-day behaviour. EMDRIA certification sits above the basic EMDR training course: it takes at least 50 EMDR sessions with 25 clients, 20 hours of consultation with an EMDRIA Approved Consultant, and renewal every two years. Denise earned it over two years of EMDR practice under consultation with an EMDR consultant. She trained in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for addiction at the Beck Institute in Philadelphia, founded by Dr Aaron Beck, and in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) at the DBT Centre of Vancouver.

At Jintara, Denise helps clients uncover the causes of their addictive behaviour and identify the skills, resources, and changes needed to replace addiction with something immeasurably better, a good life. She works with a small group of about 10 adults at a time inside a CBT-core, non-12-step program, and decides when CBT, DBT, EMDR, or CPT is the right fit for each client. Her addiction and trauma work anchors the clinical team at Jintara.