Sue Boyd, LCSW, BCD

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Call: (619) 787-6676 | TEXT | Email: PEP@PEPSanDiego.com

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Sue Boyd, LCSW, BCD is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW#24597) in the state of California and a Board Certified Diplomate in Social Work. She is the Executive Director of Personal Evolution Psychotherapy (PEP) and founded PEP in 2011 to provide non-judgmental, compassionate and effective therapy. Sue knows that beginning therapy can be scary, and that people frequently hesitate to begin until life has become very difficult. The type of therapy that PEP offers, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), provides tools that can be used to make life less difficult very quickly. Sue wants to help people both inside and outside of mainstream society, and has made this one of the missions of PEP.

Specialities:

• DBT
• DBT for Children
• DBT Prolonged Exposure
• Gender Therapy
• Anxiety
• Depression
• LGBTQ+
• Emotional Eating
• Teens
• Couples
• Families in Crisis
• Postpartum Depression
• Parental/Significant Other support around Transition
• Substance Abuse/Dual Diagnosis
• ADHD

Sue received her Master of Social Work (MSW) degree from San Diego State University in May 2001. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of North Florida in December 1991 with a double major in Psychology and Sociology. Sue is Founder and Clinical Director of Personal Evolution Psychotherapy, where she provides individual, couples and family therapy. She has over 17 years of extensive experience and training in providing Gender Therapy to transgender and genderqueer adults, adolescents (transmen, transwomen, non-binary), gender-variant children, and their families. She also specializes in working with people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ), and has been working with the LGBTQ+ community since 1996. Sue is Kink-Friendly and works with people in the BDSM and Poly communities in a non-judgmental, safe and supportive environment, and has been working with the kink community for over 10 years.

Sue started her career as the Interim Executive Director for The Suicide Prevention Center in Jacksonville, FL, then provided individual and family therapy to families referred by Child Protective Services in Jacksonville, FL, worked as a lead instructor at Hurricane Island Outward Bound in Florida providing outdoor education and leadership training to juvenile offenders, then as a clinical intern at Children’s Hospital San Diego and at the LGBTQ Center in San Diego.  She provided individual and group therapy at Halcyon Crisis Center, at Outpatient services at Bayview Behavioral Health Hospital and Alvarado Parkway Institute, at San Diego Center for Children, and behavioral consulting for the developmentally delayed population in San Diego County. She was also a Field Instructor for SDSU’s MSW program for several years, supervising MSW interns and has been a clinical supervisor for Associate Clinical Social Workers, Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapists, and Registered Associate Professional Clinical Counselors. Sue currently provides clinical supervision to pre-licensed clinicians at PEP. Sue has provided modified DBT skills training since 2001 in a variety of settings, and comprehensive and complete DBT individual and skills training since 2008.

Sue co-founded a team of DBT therapists in 2008. She completed Dr. Marsha Linehan’s Intensive Training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, 2008-2009, in a training that was conducted by Dr. Marsha Linehan and Dr. Shari Manning. Dr. Marsha Linehan is the founder of DBT. Sue also completed a second DBT intensive training by Dr. Charlie Swenson in 2015 with Personal Evolution Psychotherapy DBT team. She completed ‘Doing DBT to Adherence and with Competence: An Advanced Course’ with Dr. Charlie Swenson. Sue also completed an Advanced DBT intensive training course in 2016 with Dr. Kelly Koerner and Dr. Charlie Swenson, and an Advanced DBT intensive training on DBT Prolonged Exposure Protocol for PTSD in 2016 with Dr. Melanie Harned and Dr. Elizabeth Dexter-Mazza. In 2017, Sue completed an Advanced DBT training Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Action: Case Based Training with Dr. Shari Manning and Dr. Kate Comtois.  She has also completed several other trainings for DBT. Sue meets for weekly DBT team consultation with Personal Evolution Psychotherapy. This allows her to practice her dialectics of acceptance and change.

Sue is a member of WPATH and NASW, and has attended the inaugural meeting of USPATH in 2017, as well as numerous and lengthy trainings in DBT, gender identity and expression, mindfulness, eating disorders, depression and anxiety since 1999. She also meets with PEP’s gender consultation team to assist with gender therapy. This is the oldest gender consultation team in San Diego County.