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Greenbrier Academy For Girls Pence Springs, West Virginia 24962 Phone: 304-445-7790 Email Admissions Staff: [ Site Map ] Toll Free: 877-788-8422 admissions@greenbrieracademy.com Copyright 2011
Executive Staff & Consulting Professionals
L. Jay Mitchell
President / Founder
L. Jay has been actively involved in the profession of adolescent mental health for over 25 years. As a USAF Judge Advocate and as a partner in a civil law practice he focused on cases involving psychological assessment, capacity and emotional injury. His experience with forensic behavioral scientists led to an exploration of the behavioral, cognitive and emotional change process. This led to founding and directing the SUWS Adolescent Program in 1982, a one month outdoor intervention removing intransigent emotional impasses. SUWS is the longest continuous operating program of its kind in the United States.
To date there have been over 10,000 graduates of these programs. He has worked for years with Dr. Brent Slife in the development and application of a therapeutic model called "strong relationality". This model is being incorporated at Greenbrier Academy. He has written, published, and presented papers in the field while also training practitioners.
Brent D. Slife, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist / Co-Founder
Dr. Brent Slife is currently a Professor of Psychology at Brigham Young University, where he chairs the doctoral program in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and serves as a member of the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology. He has been honored recently with several awards for his scholarship and teaching. He has authored more than 120 articles and six books and serves as a Fellow of the American Psychology Association. Dr. Slife also continues his psychotherapy practice of over 25 years, where he specializes in marital and family therapies.
Dr. Slife is a co-owner, executive board member, therapist/counselor trainer, family program facilitator, and consulting clinical psychologist at Greenbrier Academy. For more information, please visit www.brentdslife.com
Hassan A. Jafary, M.D.
Consulting Psychiatrist
Dr. Hassan A. Jafary (aka Dr. Nick) is presently working at Beckley Psychiatric Services in Beckley, WV. He started this office in July 2008 after he qualified as a Psychiatrist from Cornell University. He completed his four years of residency at the Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Hospital. He was Chief Resident in his final years of residency.
After finishing his residency he moved back to Beckley, WV where his family has resided for many years. He grew up in Punjab, Pakistan where he completed his schooling and acquired his first degree, majoring in Pre-med. He always intended to follow in the footsteps of his two older siblings, who are medical physicians in Beckley. He was also a keen sportsman during this period.
He applied and was accepted at the medical university in Dominican Republic where he stayed seven years and completed his medical degree. He had an exceptional experience in the Dominican Republic. Not only did he learn Spanish, but he also learned valuable communication skills while serving the locals. This has proven to be an advantage during his residency and in running his current practice. He now owns and runs a thriving and very successful psychiatric office. He is well known, respected and liked by his patients and medical community due to his classic approach and excellent bed side manner.
Carole T. Giunta, Ph.D.
Consulting Psychologist
Dr. Carole Giunta is a licensed clinical psychologist with more than 20 years experience in assessment and treatment. Throughout her training and professional life, Dr. Giunta has had a strong interest in psychological assessment. It is her commitment to making psychological assessment results accessible and useful which guides the philosophy of her practice. For many years, Dr. Giunta and her associates have been actively involved in helping young people and families understand their strengths and vulnerabilities and discover new paths for healing and learning. Dr. Giunta greatly enjoys the opportunity to work with adolescents and their families.
In addition to her interest in adolescents, Dr. Giunta also conducts evaluations with a broad range of other clients, working closely with attorneys and physicians to facilitate understanding of their clients’ mental health and neuropsychological functioning in light of legal or medical problems. She frequently consults on matters of mental health and the law and provides expert witness testimony. Dr. Giunta holds a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Vermont.
Dr. Giunta and her associate, Dr. Orth, conduct psychological and psychoeducational assessments at Greenbrier Academy. To learn more about services offered, please visit www.giunta-associates.com
James E. Orth, Ph.D., ABPP
Consulting Psychologist 
Dr. Jim Orth has enjoyed providing psychological services to children, adolescents and their families for more than 22 years. Board Certified in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, he has particular interests in patterns of attachment as manifested throughout development, and in the impact of sensory processing and other areas of self-regulation upon the developing child’s abilities to learn, to manage emotions, and to establish and maintain relationships with others. Dr. Orth has published articles regarding regulatory problems in children, psychotherapy, and doctor-patient relationships.
Dr. Orth shares with Giunta and Associates a commitment to high-quality, comprehensive psychological assessments that provide understandable and useful information for teenagers, their families, and those involved in their education and care. Evaluations may help clarify diagnoses, identify strengths and supports, and develop recommendations for treatment and for enhancing development. Dr. Orth draws upon extensive experience evaluating children and adolescents with complex presentations, many of whom have received multiple evaluations and treatment efforts yet continue to have major difficulties functioning in different areas of their lives. To learn more about services offered, please visit www.giunta-associates.com
S. Gregory Hipskind, M.D., Ph.D.
Neurology and Behavioral Medicine 
Dr. Greg Hipskind graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1969 and subsequently received his medical degree, with a PhD in Neurophysiology, from St. Louis University in 1978. He served as president of his graduating class and was the recipient of the Alpha Omega Alpha Research Award. He completed residencies in Neurology at the University of California, San Diego, and in Family Medicine at the University of Colorado, where he served as Chief Resident. Certified by the American Board of Family Practice in 1981, Dr. Hipskind practiced as a board-certified family physician, including obstetrics, in Bellingham, Washington for twenty-one years. In a twelve-year period of exclusive focus in Family Medicine, he delivered over 600 babies. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. In his tenure as president of the Whatcom County Medical Society, he helped to restore the local Interfaith Health Clinic for low income and uninsured patients. While serving as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Washington State Medical Association, he developed the Doctorcare Program, a physician supported program for the low income elderly which became a model program throughout every county in the State of Washington.
In the recent twelve years of clinical practice, Dr. Hipskind has integrated brain SPECT imaging into his neurobehavioral practice. As a licensed nuclear neurologist, Dr. Hipskind has studied with one of the premier functional brain imaging clinicians in the world, Ismael Mena, MD, Professor Emeritus of Neurology and Radiology at UCLA-Harbor, helping to develop and refine state-of-the-art brain imaging software. Dr. Hipskind has personally interpreted over 4,000 brain SPECT scans.
Dr. Hipskind is nationally recognized as a leading expert in demonstrating brain SPECT imaging’s role in the evaluation of traumatic and toxic/anoxic brain injuries such as carbon monoxide poisoning. He recently published “Recent Advances in Brain SPECT Imaging after Carbon Monoxide Poisoning” in the 2008 medical textbook Carbon Monoxide Poisoning, edited by David Penney, PhD. Dr. Hipskind engages actively in consultations with clinicians and attorneys of patients with brain injuries throughout the U.S. To date, he has been admitted as a medical expert on the role of brain SPECT imaging in over seventy cases involving head trauma.
As a clinical neuroscientist, Dr. Hipskind is also well recognized as a specialist, since 1993, in the evaluation and treatment of children, adolescents and adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Dr. Hipskind’s work as a research associate with the Department of Anthropology at Western Washington University has contributed five scientific publications on the genetics of ADHD.
Dr. Hipskind lectures extensively throughout the U.S. to numerous groups of physicians, teachers and other professionals regarding brain SPECT imaging’s role in the assessment and rehabilitation of brain injuries and the proper diagnosis and treatment of ADHD. Additionally, he has developed educational programs that teach clinicians how to effectively incorporate functional brain imaging into their clinical practices. During his seven-year tenure as Medical Director for the Genesis II drug and alcohol treatment program of the Nooksack Indian nation, Dr. Hipskind utilized brain SPECT imaging to refine the evaluation process within the dual-diagnosis treatment program. Dr. Hipskind’s efforts have also been instrumental in establishing the use of brain SPECT imaging at St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham, Washington.
Dr. Hipskind has appeared on Nightline with Tom Snyder, the Dr. Phil Show, Evening Magazine, a Seattle-based public interest program, The Truth about Drugs with Leeza Gibbons, a national documentary on the drugs’ effects on teenage brain health, and numerous other television and radio programs.