Dr. Susan Stuntzner, PhD, LPC, LMHC, ACS, CRC, NCC provides behavioral health and mental health services to injured workers as a part of their coping and return to work process. She also provides counseling and resilience-building skills to individuals with disabilities in her collaboration with Vocational Rehabilitation Division in Oregon and is an approved supervisor for LPC-Associates in Oregon. She is a part-time lecturer at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Previously, she was a Director of Accessible Education at a local college, and an Assistant Professor in the School of Rehabilitation Services and Counseling at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She has 29 years of experience working in the rehabilitation counseling profession. During this time, she has worked as a vocational evaluator, counselor, psychology staff member, and faculty member, and she has a wide breadth of experience in helping people live with and move past a disability or difficult life event.

Dr. Stuntzner has published several articles on forgiveness, self-compassion, and resilience within the context of disability and has given over 90 trainings and workshops. She has written three books pertaining to coping and adaptation and/or resilience-based skills: Living with a Disability: Finding Peace Amidst the Storm; Reflections from the Past: Life Lessons for Better Living; and Resiliency and Coping: The Family After. Each one focuses on ways to help individuals, families, and/or professionals consider and develop strategies to improve coping, adaptation, and resilience following a disability.

More recently, she co-authored an article for Counseling Today on the Therapeutic Triad as well as a book chapter that discusses the Therapeutic Triad as a component of behavioral health service delivery. Currently, she is working on a fourth book and workbook on the Therapeutic Triad - forgiveness, self-compassion, and resilience - and how these approaches help people heal and obtain a better way of life. She is also the developer of a 7-module forgiveness intervention (i.e., Stuntzner’s Forgiveness Intervention: Learning to Forgive Yourself and Others) and a co-developer of a 10-module resilience intervention (i.e., Stuntzner & Hartley’s Life Enhancement Intervention: Developing Resiliency Skills Following Disability) for people with disabilities.

Dr. Stuntzner is the creator of CRCC’s online e-university courses, Resilience and Disability: Enhancing Rehabilitation Professionals’ Understanding and Application of Resilience to Rehabilitation Counseling, Enhancing Your Well-being: Making Self-care and Resilience a Priority, and Forgiveness and Disability: Embracing Inner Healing as a Part of the Rehabilitation Process, and Self-compassion: Integrating Compassionate Practices into Our Daily Lives which are currently being offered through the Commission on Rehabilitation Counseling Certification. Dr. Stuntzner has been interviewed four times for Psychology Talks (CCTV) by Dr. Angela Plowhead to share information about resilience, living well with a disability, supporting people with disabilities, and COVID-19: being resilient during and after the pandemic. Additional information can be found at her website: https://therapeutic-healing-disability.com.