Staff
The staff at Sentio Counseling Center bring together decades of combined experience in clinical psychology, counselor training, research, and nonprofit mental health services. Led by Executive Director Tony Rousmaniere, Psy.D., who also serves as President of Sentio University, our staff are dedicated to advancing the field of psychotherapy through Deliberate Practice, clinical outcome measurement, and evidence-based training. Sentio is the only counseling center in California that integrates Deliberate Practice and clinical outcome data into its training and service delivery model, and our staff are the driving force behind this approach.
Sentio Counseling Center is a nonprofit organization affiliated with Sentio University, a private nonprofit graduate university in Los Angeles offering a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy program. Our staff includes experienced clinicians, researchers, and educators who have published extensively in leading academic and popular outlets. You can explore their contributions on our Press and Publications page. This commitment to research and public education reflects our belief that better training produces better therapy outcomes for clients.
Our staff oversee the clinical operations that allow Sentio to serve clients across the entire state of California. Through online counseling, we provide affordable, high-quality mental health services to residents of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, San Jose, Oakland, Long Beach, Fresno, Riverside, Bakersfield, Anaheim, Santa Ana, Irvine, Pasadena, Stockton, and surrounding areas. We also serve clients throughout Orange County, Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, Alameda County, and Contra Costa County. As a nonprofit, we offer sliding scale therapy starting at $15 per session. To get started, visit our new client page or contact us.
Tony Rousmaniere, PsyD, Executive Director
Tony Rousmaniere, Psy.D. is Executive Director of the Sentio Counseling Center, President of the Sentio Marriage and Family Therapy graduate school, and Past-President of the psychotherapy division of the American Psychological Association, and the author of over 20 books on Deliberate Practice and psychotherapy training. He is co-editor of two book series: The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books) and Advanced Therapeutics, Clinical and Interpersonal Skills (Elsevier). Dr. Rousmaniere supports the "open data" movement towards making clinical outcome data available to consumers, policy-makers, and researchers by publishing his clinical outcome data on his website. In 2017, he published the widely-cited article in The Atlantic Monthly, “What your therapist doesn’t know”. He is a licensed psychologist in California and Washington.
Peter Awad, Clinic Director
Peter Awad, MS received a graduate degree in Counseling Psychology from California State University, Long Beach and completed his practicum training in Deliberate Practice at Sentio Counseling Center. Peter has extensive research experience working with veterans, first responders and individuals at risk of suicide. He also worked as a psychometrist at the Center for PCS and PTSD Treatment conducting neuropsychological evaluations for traumatic brain injury and PTSD. Peter is Egyptian-American and passionate about mindfulness meditation, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and psychedelic integrative therapy.
Dr. Alexandre Vaz, Director of Training
Alexandre Vaz, Ph.D. is the Director of Training at the Sentio Counseling Center. He is co-editor of two book series: The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books) and Advanced Therapeutics, Clinical and Interpersonal Skills (Elsevier). He has held multiple committee roles for the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) and the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). Dr. Vaz is founder and host of Psychotherapy Expert Talks, an acclaimed interview series with distinguished psychotherapists and therapy researchers. He is a licensed clinical psychologist in Portugal.
Dr. Jordan Harris, Director of the Sentio Deliberate Practice Coaching Program
Jordan Harris, Ph.D., LMFT-S, LPC-S runs the Sentio Deliberate Practice Coaching program. He is the lead author of the book Deliberate Practice in Multicultural Therapy. Dr. Harris is also co-developer of the Numerapy Model, a coaching program teaching therapists how to leave community based work and start their own solo counseling practices. Dr. Harris runs a solo counseling practice (Harris Couples Counseling, Marriage Therapy, & Private Practice Coaching) in Northwest Arkansas where he specializes in working with couples.
Jason Brand, Senior Deliberate Practice Trainer
Jason Brand, LCSW is a Senior Deliberate Practice Trainer and Faculty at Sentio. He is certified in Deliberate Practice Supervision through the International Deliberate Practice Society. In his private psychotherapy practice Jason specializes in supporting the growth and development of men in an increasingly complex world. His work with men includes facilitating a group for fathers of young children. In his couples work, he is certified in PACT (The Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy) and serves as a faculty member at the PACT Institute. Jason lives in Berkeley with his wife of twenty years and their two teenage daughters. Find out more about Jason on his website: www.jasonbrand.com
MacKenzie Stuart, Senior Deliberate Practice Trainer
MacKenzie Stuart, LMFT, is a Senior Deliberate Practice Trainer and Faculty at Sentio. She is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who works with adults, couples, partners, and families. She specializes in nontraditional relationship structures, including polyamory and other forms of consensual nonmonogamy, as well as chronic depression and suicidality. Her other clinical interests include psychosis, psychopharmacology and drugs, LGBTQIA2-S and GNC/non-binary communities, kink and BDSM practices, and sex work. MacKenzie enjoys psychodynamic case conceptualization, the enneagram, biofeedback, narrative and solution-focused interventions, and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) skills. She is a member of core faculty at The Wright Institute in Berkeley and leads a private practice in Alameda.