Dr. Sue Duenke

Licensed Psychologist PSY 15555

About Dr. Sue

Areas of Interest

  • Adults Abused as Children
  • Chronic, Severe, and Terminal Illness
  • Trauma, Loss and Grief
  • Depression, Anxiety, and Relationship Issues
  • Midwifing the Dying

Research indicates a powerful relationship between our emotional experiences as children and our physical and mental health as adults, as well as the major causes of adult mortality. It documents the conversion of traumatic emotional experiences into organic disease later in life. Adult survivors of childhood maltreatment who appear to be healthy are twice as likely to show clinically relevant levels of inflammation known to predict the development of conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.*

Time does not heal some of the common adverse experiences of childhood... even fifty years later.

Examples of adverse childhood events: recurrent physical abuse, recurrent emotional abuse, contact sexual abuse, growing up in a household where someone was in prison, where the mother was treated violently, with an alcoholic or drug user, where someone was chronically depressed, mentally ill, or suicidal, where at least one biological parent was lost to the child, regardless of the cause.

You know, Dr. Sue, you were the best thing that I have done for myself so far; thank you for being there back then.
~ EM

Education

1994
Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology: Florida Institute of Technology
1990
Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology: Fairleigh Dickinson University
2002
President of Santa Clara County Psychological Association
2010
Master of Arts in Women's Spirituality; graduation expected June 2011: Institute of Transpersonal Psychology

Publications

Peake, T., Meyers & S. Duenke. "Options for Brief Psychology: Cognitive and Psychodynamic Variations." Journal of Mental Health (Great Britain), 1997: 6, 3, pp. 217-235.

Caldwell, R., C. Classen, L. Laganá, E. McGarvey, L. Baum, S. Duenke, & C. Koopman. "Changes in sexual functioning and mood among women treated for gynecological cancer who receive group therapy: A pilot study." Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 2003: 10, 3, pp. 149-156.


* King's College Study led by Dr. Andrea Danese in London. ^