Dr. Rafael S Harris

Speaker

Dr. Harris joined the Bay Pines Veterans Healthcare Administration in August, 2008. His primary assignment is within the Substance Abuse Treatment Program (SATP), outpatient services, with secondary placement in the Pain Clinic. Previous to his present appointment, Dr. Harris had worked at three different university counseling centers, one each in Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida. Dr. Harris’ approach to therapy is characterized by an egalitarian perspective that aims for clients to consider whether their relationship with substances is consistent or inconsistent with their personal goals, emphasizing personal choice. He enjoys the professional struggle between the quest for evidence-based therapies versus the idiographic nature of each individual. He tends to conceptualize mental health consumers from an existential/humanistic framework, while attending to the consumer’s theory of change. Dr. Harris is wary of the medicalization of psychology. He is originally from Venezuela, South America.