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About “Dr. Debra,” Relationship Expert

“Dr. Debra” Mandel, Ph.D., is a recognized and respected psychologist, author, columnist, speaker, and media expert with over twenty years experience. She specializes in treating adolescents through geriatrics who suffer from anxiety, stress, childhood abuse, eating disorders, addictions, workplace/career issues, and general life concerns. She also has extensive experience counseling individuals and couples dealing with relationship struggles, infidelity, divorce or other losses.
Dr. Debra, relationship expert, is the author of Your Boss is Not Your Mother: Eight Steps to Eliminating Office Drama and Creating Positive Relationships at Work (Agate, 2006) and Healing the Sensitive Heart: How to Stop Getting Hurt, Build Your Inner Strength, and Find the Love You Deserve (Adams Media, 2003, and Airleaf Publishing, 2005). Each book is a wealth of information on overcoming problems like infidelity in a relationship and anxiety relief tips for the workplace. She also has two CDs: The Abuser-Friendly Syndrome and Creating Healthy Boundaries in the Workplace. Her forthcoming book, Dump That Chump: From Doormat to Diva in Only Nine Steps—A Guide to Getting Over Mr. Wrong, is scheduled for release in September of 2007, published by Harper Collins.

Dr. Debra is heavily sought out by the media. She has appeared on numerous national and local television shows addressing a range of topics including relationships, parenting, childhood abuse, voyeurism, sex, body image, boundaries and many others. She appears frequently on Fox News Live as a relationship expert. She was also regularly featured as a guest expert on the nationally syndicated The Larry Elder Show (TelePictures). There, she gave numerous couples advice on how to either improve their relationship or end it.

Some of her many other television credits include: The O’Reilly Factor (expert on kidnapping, trauma and child abuse), CNN Headline News (expert on teens and self-esteem), Inside Edition (expert on the effects of trauma scenes on child actors), CBS’s The Early Show, The Learning Channel’s The 750 Pound Man (expert on obesity), FX’s 30 Days (expert on fear of aging and its impact on relationships, produced by Morgan Spurlock, known for his critically acclaimed film Supersize Me), NBC’s Starting Over (expert on post-traumatic stress disorder), and VH1’s Britney’s Secret Childhood. She was also highlighted as the sex therapist/psychologist on Fox Television’s hit My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé. Other appearances include: The Rob Nelson Show, Berman and Berman (Discovery Health Channel), Perfect Image TV, and E Style. While on tour to promote her books, Dr. Debra has also appeared on multiple national network affiliates (ABC, CBS, and NBC) in the major metropolitan cities, as well as on many cable shows.

Dr. Debra’s media career continues to flourish. She regularly books auditions for various reality shows who are seeking a relationship expert. She is frequently approached by various other large production companies to develop pilots for future shows. She is also in the process of creating her own television show, receiving serious interest from a number of production companies.

Dr. Debra has hosted her own popular weekly radio program in Los Angeles and on the web, called Shrink Rap for almost two years. She has also been a featured guest expert on over 200 national and local radio programs and has been known as the “resident shrink” in several radio markets (e.g. KNX, KGAB, KOGO, syndicated Michael Dresser Show and Ric Bratton). She has become a regular guest on The Christopher Lowell Show. Radio shows continue to call upon Dr. Debra’s expertise on a variety of topics from infidelity to childhood abuse.

Dr. Debra has been featured in the printed media as a columnist and an expert. In a compassionate voice differing in tone from her competition in the marketplace, her advice in “Dear Dr. Debra” (appearing in the Tolucan [California] Times) centers on personal and professional relationship issues. Without dishing out dictums, she offers readers choices and then helps them claim responsibility for what they choose. She also offers expert anxiety relief tips.

Dr. Debra is regularly interviewed and quoted in articles for many national magazines such as Glamour, Fitness, More, Cosmopolitan, Lifetime, In Touch, Time, First for Women, Fit, Teen, All About Me, Men’s Health, and Pregnancy on a range of topics including: relationships, sex, PMS, anxiety relief tips, love and friendship, procrastination, working moms, boundaries and healthy weight loss. As a relationship expert, she’s frequently solicited for her advice from contributing writers for Cosmopolitan, Time, the New York Times and USA Today. Dr. Debra also writes her own articles for Working World and Ability, addressing issues relating to self-improvement and relationships.

No stranger to the lecture platform, Dr. Debra has addressed colleagues, hospital professionals, and college and general audiences on many topics including “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder", “Shame and Unhealthy Coping,” “I’m Hungry But Not for Food,” “Bulimia, Anorexia, and Personality Disorders,” “Anxiety Relief Tips,” “Sex-Role Issues,” “Eating Disorders,” “The Tenderhearted Trap,” and “Creating Healthy Boundaries in the Workplace,” and “Infidelity in a Relationship.” She has also given a number of talks to varying audiences about her books, Healing the Sensitive Heart and Your Boss Is Not Your Mother, and her CDs.

A member of the American Psychological Association and the Los Angeles County Psychological Association, Dr. Debra graduated summa cum laude from California State University, Northridge, in just three years, and then received her Master’s in psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in 1984. She earned her doctorate degree in clinical psychology in 1987, and was licensed to practice in California in 1989. In addition to advanced training in Gestalt therapy, she has also received specialized training in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing), a therapy approach particularly beneficial to trauma patients.

Dr. Debra’s clinical experience has included time at local hospitals where she treated individuals and facilitated groups for adult patients with addictions (sex, food, and drugs), dissociative identity disorders, and histories of severe abuse. She has also worked extensively with severely emotionally disturbed adolescents suffering from child abuse and other mental disorders in a number of clinic and hospital settings.

Throughout her years of practice, Dr. Debra, relationship expert, has primarily focused her work on individuals and couples who suffer relationship, infidelity and intimacy problems and on helping people take full control of their lives so they can thrive! She’s successfully helped countless people of all ages become happier and more fulfilled in everything they choose to do.

See Dr. Mandel's Professional CV