Brief Bio
Dr. August Vanderbeek received her undergraduate degree in American Sign Language Psycholinguistics from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. She earned her master’s degree in Educational Psychology, and then her doctorate in Clinical Child-School Psychology from New York University in 1991. Currently licensed in California, Colorado, and Florida, she has provided individual, couples and family psychotherapy for 28 years.
Her varied experience includes the creation and direction of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Outpatient Mental Health Program at Jackson Memorial University of Miami Medical Center. During that time, Dr. Vanderbeek supervised and trained master, doctoral and post-doctoral students and did research. She also created a dance movement program for teenagers and an animal assisted self-esteem building non-profit program called Dolphin Journeys for Deaf Children, in the Florida Keys. Dr. Vanderbeek continues to work with the Deaf and hard of hearing community here in Santa Barbara where she is developing a non-profit program called Connecting through Sign Language.
After moving to Colorado she engaged in a private practice for 11 years and created an equine-assisted psychotherapy program called Horse Horizons. Dr. Vanderbeek has been certified in EMDR, EGALA, and Nia. She has experience treating clients of all ages,hearing,hard of hearing and Deaf (using American Sign Language as needed) with a range of life and psychological issues such as depression, adjustment, attention –deficit and mood disorders, anxiety, and trauma. Dr. Vanderbeek has worked with different issues pertaining to relationships, woman’s health and self-esteem, addiction, learning, codependency, loss and grief, life and career transitions, deafness and hard of hearing, aging, medical and end of life. She enjoys helping people better understand themselves and the world around them.
