Dana L. Comstock, Ph.D., L.P.C.
The ACES leadership is pleased to announce that our ACES 2009 Keynote Conference Presenter is Dana L. Comstock. Dr. Comstock will discuss "The Expanding Role of Counselor Educators in Dismantling 'Rankism': Our Path to Global Communion" in her keynote speech in San Diego, CA.
Dana L. Comstock, Ph.D., L.P.C. is a full Professor of Counseling and Chair of the Department of Counseling and Human Services at St. Mary's University, San Antonio, TX where she has taught since 1991. Dr. Comstock has extensive preparation and experience working within the framework of Relational-Cultural theory (RCT). She completed the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute's Practitioner's Program under the supervision of Dr. Judith Jordan in 2003 and serves as a teaching faculty for the Jean Baker Miller Summer Advanced Training Institutes. She is the editor of Diversity in Development: Critical Contexts that Shape Our Lives and Relationships; the first RCT based counseling text published in 2005 by Wadsworth/Brooks-Cole. Among her numerous publications, Dr. Comstock is featured in the premier RCT casebook How Connection Heal: Stories from Relational-Cultural Therapy and The Complete Guide to Mental Health for Women. Most recently she was featured in a special issue of the Journal for Counseling and Development (Summer, 2008) dedicated to multicultural counseling.
Dr. Comstock routinely guest lectures on RCT to counseling students and professionals both nationally and internationally. In the past year, she has spoken on RCT in Argentina, Venezuela and Nicaragua. She is a member of the American Counseling Association, the National Institute for Multicultural Competence, Counselors for Social Justice, the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision, the Inter-American Counseling Society and is on the Educational Team of the Human Dignity Humiliation Studies Organization. She was also the founding president of Texas Counselors for Social Justice, an effort which was spearheaded by Dr. Selma Iznaga of University of Texas-Brownsville.
In her keynote address, Dr. Comstock will present how acting as a "Dignitarian" can transform our increasingly global community. Dignitarians promote peace, social respect and relational consciousness by deconstructing "Rankism." In her presentation, she will discuss the work of the Human Dignity Humiliation Studies Organization (www.humiliationstudies.org), new research on the neurobiology social exclusion and the destructive fallout of humiliation. Lastly, she will address relational competencies specific to dignitarians and the challenges counselor educators and mental health professionals face in eradicating "Rankism".
