Dr. Patt Denning has worked in the field of substance use and substance use disorders for over 20 years. She began her career teaching drug and sex education to adolescents in a maximum security juvenile justice facility. She currently conducts training on sophisticated treatment approaches, advocating what is now called Harm Reduction. From 1978-1993 she worked as Clinical Director for both a residential and a outpatient psychiatric program in San Francisco. From 1977 to 1992 she developed expertise on the complexities of patients with multiple diagnoses, including serious mentally illness, substance use, and HIV.Most recently, Dr. Denning has developed a comprehensive assessment and treatment program, Addiction Treatment Alternatives, within her general private practice. This is one of the few available treatments that does not rely on a disease model or Twelve-Step practices, but rather is based on psychodynamic and cognitive concepts. Integral to this model is a belief that drug use is adaptive in origin, with difficulties arising later as a result of pharmacology, and partly as a return of previous problems hidden by the drug use.Dr. Denning earned her M.A. in Counseling Psychology from Webster College (1974), and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Professional School of Psychology in San Francisco (1985). Dr. Denning and a colleague have recently started a non-profit, The Harm Reduction Therapy Center, which will provide low cost treatment and clinical training in Harm Reduction Psychotherapy in the San Francisco Bay Area.

(2001). Strategies for Implementation of Harm Reduction in Treatment Settings. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. Vol 33(1). January-March, 2001.(2000). Practicing Harm Reduction Psychotherapy Guilford Press(In press) Triple Diagnosis: Assessment and Treatment of People with HIV, Substance Use, and Psychiatric Disorders. Zweben & Denning.