Charles Swenson, MD

Dr. Swenson is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at UMass Medical School. He sees adults, adolescents, couples, and families in a private practice, and has conducted training, consultation, and supervision in DBT throughout North America and some European countries for over 25 years. He has consulted extensively on DBT throughout the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and Italy. Having graduated from Harvard College, Yale Medical School, and Yale’s Psychiatry Residency, he went on to develop and direct psychoanalytic and DBT programs for borderline patients at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center for 14 years. From 1997 to the present, he has worked as the Area Medical Director, Senior Psychiatrist, and consultant with the Department of Mental Health, Western Massachusetts area. Dr. Swenson has published upwards of twenty-five articles and book chapters on DBT and the treatment of borderline personality disorder. In 2016 he published DBT Principles in Action: Change, Acceptance, and Dialectics. Since September 2017, Dr. Swenson has offered a weekly one-hour podcast, To Hell and Back, about using DBT skills to cope with life’s adversity. Dr. Swenson co-founded the International Society for Implementation and Training of DBT (ISITDBT) with Marsha Linehan in 1996 and was the first recipient of the Cindy Sanderson Outstanding Educator Award given by ISITDBT in 2004. He received the Alfred Stanton Award from McLean Hospital in 2015. Dr. Swenson is known in his teaching for his clarity, authenticity, humor, and warmth. His presentation for J&K Seminars in 2013 received very high participant evaluations