Kelly Caver, PhD lectures in the didactic seminars for ICTP. She is a contributor to the Challenging Clinical Situations and Chronic Pain curriculum. Dr. Caver is a clinical psychologist who works in Primary Care Mental Health Integration (PCMHI) at the Seattle VA, in both the Primary Care clinic and Women’s Health clinic.
She received her PhD in Counseling Psychology from Texas A&M University. While treating veterans through their primary care clinics via videoconferencing as a telehealth psychologist at the North Texas VA, Dr. Caver became interested in addressing patients’ physical health concerns, such as chronic pain, along with traditional mental health concerns. After learning about the VA’s Primary Care Mental Health Integration program at a conference, in 2014 she transferred to the Seattle VA to her current position in Primary Care Mental Health Integration. She provides triage evaluation, brief individual and group psychotherapy, and consultation to primary care clinic staff.
Dr. Caver has developed several groups and classes in PCMHI.Her professional interests include chronic pain, PTSD, anxiety disorders, depression, smoking cessation, telemental health, meditation, multiculturalism, supervision and training, and program development. She is proud of the VA’s efforts to reduce stigma and promote access to behavioral health services within primary care clinics and hopes that in five years that all primary care clinics will be able to provide same-day access to mental health services. Dr. Caver believes that her most important work is in adapting evidence-based psychological treatments into integrative care settings.