BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Ty Colbert, PhD

Dr. Colbert is a clinical psychologist and director of the Center of Psychological Alternatives to Biopsychiatry. The center is dedicated to educating both the professional and the public about the fallacies behind the inheritance and the chemical imbalance models of mental illness. Dr. Colbert is also the author of several books including his internationally acclaimed Broken Brains or Wounded Hearts: What Causes Mental Illness.

Todd DuBose, MDiv, PhD

Todd DuBose is a Distinguished Full Professor at The Chicago School’s College of Professional Psychology.  He is also a licensed existential-hermeneutical-phenomenological psychologist in practice with over thirty-five years of experience as a clinician, teacher, supervisor, former chaplain, and consultant in local, national and international venues, including presentations and teaching in over twelve countries. His specialization is in the therapoetics of care, or heeding lived meaning, as an alternative to deficit-correction and psycho-education. Most of all, he prefers to be known simply as another fellow human being.

Al Galves, PhD

Dr. Galves is a clinical psychologist in New Mexico and Colorado. He has worked as a psychotherapist in community mental health centers, in health clinics, and as a school psychologist in public schools. He is a board member of MindFreedom International and the author of Harness Your Dark Side:  Mastering Jealousy, Rage, Frustration and Other Negative Emotions. Dr. Galves was our Executive Director from 2011 to 2013. He is the current President of MindFreedom International.

Michael Gilbert, PsyD

Dr. Gilbert has worked in human services for the past 25 years, including foster care, group home, and hospital settings. In addition, he has worked as a school psychologist within the Syracuse City Schools for the past 17 years as well as an adjunct professor at local colleges. In 2000, Dr. Gilbert founded It's About Childhood & Family, Inc., a not-for-profit clinic and resource center. Recently, he launched the Inner Wealth Initiative in Central New York as a grassroots movement designed to provide families an alternative to the traditional mental health system. In addition to lecturing extensively, he advocates for non-labeling and non-medication approaches for families and teachers with children exhibiting challenging behaviors, commonly diagnosed as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, or Bipolar Disorder.

James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq

James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq., author of The Zyprexa Papers (2021) is an Alaskan lawyer, now stuck on Maui, who in 1982, at the age twenty-nine, experienced a manic episode as a result of sleep deprivation and was held at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API) for 30 days.  He was told he would never practice law again and the best he could hope for was to minimize his hospitalizations by taking one or more debilitating neuroleptics for the rest of his life.  Instead, with one other brief hospitalization in 1985, Mr. Gottstein learned how to manage his life to avoid getting into trouble again.  In 2002, Mr. Gottstein founded the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) to mount a strategic litigation campaign against forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock, winning five Alaska Supreme Court Cases, three on constitutional grounds, and one in the Seventh United States Circuit Court of Appeals.

Jake Johnson, EdD

Dr. Johnson is an Associate Professor in and past department chair of the Department of Counseling in the College of Education at Bowie State University. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, a Nationally Certified Counselor, trainer, consultant, educator, and author. He teachers graduate courses in school counseling, mental health counseling, and counseling psychology and supervises the practicum and internship in school counseling. Professionally, he is an active member of the American Counseling Association (ACA). In ACA, Dr. Johnson has chaired, participated and presented in sessions and workshops on creating a healthy workplace, stress management, rage, diversity, multiculturalism, existentialism, and existential cross-cultural counseling at national and international conferences. He is also an active member of the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (AMCD): Past-Chair, Association Development; Co-chair, Twentieth Anniversary Committee; and Past-Chair, Twenty Fifth Anniversary. He is a Past-President of the Maryland Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (MAMCD), and a Past-President, Maryland Association for Counseling and Development (MACD) and currently serving as a board member.

Don Marks, PsyD - Editor-in-Chief, Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry: An International Journal of Critical Inquiry

Dr. Seitler is a psychoanalyst/clinical psychologist in private practice. He is the former Director of Counseling And Psychotherapy Services-R, Ridgewood and Oakland, New Jersey. He is on the faculty and is the former Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Studies Program (ChAPS). Also, he is a Supervising Training Analyst and current Board of Trustees Chair for the New Jersey Institute for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Teaneck, New Jersey. Dr. Seitler is the co-editor of From Cradle to Couch: Essays in Honor of the Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology of Sylvia Brody, and chapter author of: ADHD: What we have been told ain’t necessarily so. In Deconstructing ADHD: Mental Disorder or Social Construct?; A tribute to Michael Eigen’s brave opposition to a legacy of dogma, torture, and manufactured truth. In Healing, Rebirth, and the Work of Michael Eigen; Sophistry and ADHD: The dual myths of organicity and biochemical imbalance and the ensuing medication tidal wave. In From Cradle to Couch: Essays in Honor of the Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology of Sylvia Brody; Is ADHD a real neurological disorder or collection of psychosocial symptomatic behaviors? In Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Integration of Cognitive, Neuropsychological, and Psychodynamic Perspectives in Psychotherapy. Dr. Seitler is also the Editor-in-Chief of JASPER - Journal for the Advancement of Scientific Psychoanalytic Empirical Research.

Jeanne Seitler, PsyD

Joe Tarantolo, MD

Joe Tarantolo is a psychiatrist in private practice in Washington, DC, doing individual, group and couples psychotherapy. He teaches psychiatric residents at St. Elizabeth's Hospital where he disabuses them of the idea that mental illness is a brain disease. He has  helped hundreds of patients come off psychiatric drugs. He has published on the dangers and uselessness of neuroleptic drugs, had a cameo role in the movie "Thank You For Your Service" and reviewed Thomas Szasz's last book, Suicide Prohibition. He has been a member of ISEPP for many years.

Gail Tasch, MD - Secretary

Dr. Gail Tasch is a board-certified psychiatrist, attended Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine and completed a residency at Mayo Clinic. She lives in Eau Claire, WI. Although trained in conventional medicine, Dr. Tasch has been concerned about the harm that people experience from the field of psychiatry.  Her main focus at this time is getting people out of abusive guardianships and mental health commitments. She has helped many patients leave the mental health system. She is also involved in legal work for individuals who have committed violent crimes after taking psychiatric drugs. She believes that people who experience emotional distress can benefit from holistic approaches such as psychotherapy, meditation, nutrition, and support. "I believe people should receive the very best treatment for their mental health concerns and with proper help one can live their life with joy and abundance."

Mary Neal Vieten, PhD, ABPP - Chairperson of the Board

Dr. Vieten is a psychologist and U.S. Navy Commander with the Select Reserves. She has a private practice in southern Maryland where she serves clients who are military, paramilitary, veterans, and civilians who are exposed to high risk environments like police work and combat situations. She encourages clients to pursue trauma recovery work outside the medical model and educates them on the dangers and ineffectiveness of psychiatric drug treatment. Dr. Vieten is ISEPP's Director of Operation Speak Up, an effort to critique and challenge the government's medical model treatment of those who suffer from traumatic experiences. In furtherance of this, she recently developed the Warfighter Advance program. This program offers a free, weeklong retreat to veterans and military members who suffer from the traumas of war, using a non-medical, non-clinical, non-defect, and non-drug model.

Noelene Weatherby-Fell, PhD