Practice Philosophy:
Dr. Esther Palacios-Barrios is a psychology postdoctoral fellow dedicated to providing supportive and effective care to children, adolescents, and adults. With a natural, approachable style, she quickly establishes rapport with children and teens, who find her easy to talk to and relatable. She incorporates each child’s interests into the treatment approach, often playing games, creating comics, or writing song lyrics together to make the treatment room a fun and trusting space. She builds meaningful connections with families, incorporating parents into treatment, when appropriate, and teaching them skills and strategies to support their child. Dr. Palacios-Barrios works collaboratively with adult clients, encouraging them to explore their thoughts and feelings while building on their inherent strengths. She helps all clients to understand and better manage relationships, expectations, perfectionism, peer pressure, family dynamics, and stress, particularly during times of transition. She is also deeply committed to supporting individuals from historically marginalized groups, helping them navigate and heal from cultural stress. Her approach is characterized by a thoughtful and inquisitive nature, allowing clients to gain valuable insights and achieve personal growth.
Areas of Expertise:
Dr. Palacios-Barrios specializes in working with youth and adults facing challenges related to depression, anxiety, OCD, interpersonal and family dynamics, relationship issues, trauma, and identity development, including sexual and gender identity. She also offers parent management training, teaching skills and strategies that reinforce positive behaviors and lead to improved family dynamics and change. She has extensive experience in conducting psychodiagnostic and psychoeducational evaluations. Her primary evidence-based treatment modalities include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), and interpersonal therapy (IPT-A) for adolescents focused on relationships and life transitions. She completed specialized training in exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy for the treatment of OCD, and in SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) treatment to work with parents of anxious children.. Dr. Palacios-Barrios is committed to empowering her clients to foster resilience and develop the tools they need to navigate life’s challenges and find greater fulfillment.
Experience and Training:
Dr. Palacios-Barrios earned her bachelor’s degree with honors from Stanford University in Psychology with a specialization in health and development. She completed a postbaccalaureate fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, where she received training in affective neuroscience. Dr. Palacios-Barrios holds a Master of Science and a dual PhD in Clinical and Developmental Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. She also received specialized training in Trauma Focused-CBT to treat children, adolescents, and families impacted by trauma. Dr. Palacios-Barrios completed her doctoral internship in Clinical Child Psychology at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She received a breadth of clinical training across diverse treatment settings including outpatient clinics, intensive outpatient program, residential shelter, inpatient hospitalization, therapeutic school, children and adolescent partial hospitalization programs, and pediatric primary care. Dr. Palacios-Barrios is also passionate about providing psychological services in Spanish to the Hispanic/Latinx community.
Fluent in Spanish
Dr. Palacios-Barrios completed her PhD and is being mentored by Stacy Coyle, PsyD and Andrea Biel, PsyD throughout her fellowship.
