Penny Kruger, LCSW-S completed her Masters in Social Work at Tulane University in New Orleans, her native city. She has been practicing clinical social work for 27 years at all levels of clinical care with a variety of clinical areas including mood disorders, sexual trauma, sexual compulsivity, domestic violence offender treatment, and personality disorders.

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Penny is intensively trained in both Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy. In 2006 she founded the first adult DBT Intensive Outpatient Program in Austin, Texas at Ascension Seton Behavioral Health. She acted as the Clinical Lead for this program until 2020, training and supervising many of the current practicing DBT clinicians in the Austin area.

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She is currently an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry and Department of Health Services at The University of Texas at Austin’s Dell Medical School where she teaches the psychiatric residents and social workers about DBT. In addition, Penny is the active Clinical Director of Austin DBT Associates where she helps train clinicians to provide adherent DBT and RO-DBT treatment in an outpatient setting.

Penny continues to see clients in her own private practice and provide ongoing trainings and consultations for clinicians and agencies that are trying to adapt DBT to their setting.

Nicole Lansbery is a Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Nicole attended the University of Texas at Austin where she received her Bachelor’s in Psychology. She went on to attend St. Edward’s University to receive her Master's in Counseling.

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Before starting her own private practice ten years ago, Nicole worked at a local psychiatric hospital for five years, in both inpatient and intensive outpatient settings. While there she restarted the pet therapy program with her golden retriever – a certified Pet Partner, Ruby.

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Nicole has received extensive training in DBT and has been providing DBT to the Austin community for 14 years. She enjoys learning and has also spent years studying and completing trainings in each of the following: Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, and Middelberg’s Systemic Training. In addition, Nicole has received training in Radically Open DBT (RODBT), SPACE (a treatment protocol for parents of anxious children), and New Ways for Families. Nicole resides in Austin, TX with her husband, daughter, boy/girl twins, and two dogs.