Joseph Amato is licensed as a Psychologist in Florida, New York, Arizona and Connecticut. Before his arrival in Sarasota, he served as the Suicide Prevention Coordinator for the VA Health Care Systems in the Greater New York Metropolitan area, from 2007 until March 2015. He played a nationally recognized clinical leadership role in this groundbreaking work. For his work he was given the prestigious Federal Executive Board (FEB) “Call to Service Award" in 2010. Prior to his service at VA, he was a Psychologist within the Department of Psychiatry at Stamford Hospital in Connecticut from 1992 to 2007. He completed his internship and residency at Mercy Hospital in San Diego California, and also a Clinical Fellowship in Child Psychology at The Newington Children’s Hospital in Connecticut (Now the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center). He has been trained in Cognitive Behavioral therapy, Person Centered, and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. As part of the move to evidence based treatments, VA trained him in the Institute of Medicine’s preferred treatment for PTSD called Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). Due to his work at VA, he has extensive experience providing psychological support to the families of service members from the Guard and Reserves, during their deployments and to assist with their readjustment to their communities upon their return. His clinical interests include Health Psychology and the Mind-Body Connection, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, and its contemporary revisions, and assisting adolescents and their parents with that developmental passage. He also has an interest in the interface between psychotherapy and spirituality. He provides psychological assessment and treatment for adults and adolescents. He received his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from NYU, in 1990. Before becoming a Psychologist, he served as a Roman Catholic Priest for 12 years from 1980 to 1992. Dr. Amato was an Adjunct Professor at UCONN-Stamford, from 1999