Sara Beth Austin, M.A.

Sara Beth received her B.A. (Hons.) in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed her M.A. degree in Clinical Psychology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C. in 2018. She is currently a Clinical Mental Health graduate student at Northwestern University working as an advanced Counseling Intern at Gifts of Emotion, LLC providing trauma-specialized care to adults. Sara Beth teaches Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO-DBT) skills classes at On Purpose Psyche, a therapist co-op in Southeastern Wisconsin. Sara Beth is a yoga/meditation instructor whose research and clinical interests lie at the intersection of cognition, affect, and personality and how these interrelate in the etiology and treatment of self-damaging behaviors (e.g., non-suicidal self-injury, suicide). Since 2014, she has trained and worked extensively with the RO-DBT community. Sara Beth has been instrumental in creating/leading student groups for the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders (ISSPD) and RO-DBT organizations, and currently runs the official RO-DBT Listserv. As she progresses in her career, she hopes to integrate her education, clinical, and research knowledge to influence social policy about mental illness.