Meet Your Providers

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Dr. John Pita, Ph.D., LSOTP-S

Dr. Pita is a licensed Texas Psychologist. He specializes in Clinical and Forensic psychology. His emphasis is on child custody evaluations, forensic and personality assessments, and individual, family, couples, and marriage therapy. He has over thirty years of Clinical and Forensic experience with adults, couples, adolescents, and children in private practice. He is also the former Chief Psychologist and Director of Clinical Services of the Dallas County Juvenile Department. As the Dallas County Chief Psychologist, he provided individual, group, and family psychotherapy. He conducted psychological assessments. He was involved in staff and student supervision. He also participated in court testimony and consultation. He was responsible for the creation, clinical and administrative oversight, and supervision of all psychological services and the hundred-plus clinical staff who provided services within the department’s:

• Detention Center
• Two emergency shelters
• Assessment unit
• Outpatient Family assessment and Therapy program
• Outpatient sex offender treatment program
• Two sex offender residential treatment units
• Three male behavioral units
• Female trauma-based in-patient unit (Letot Center)
• Residential and outpatient (IOP, Day Treatment and Drug Education) substance abuse units
• 24 hr./7 days a week Emergency on-call services department-wide
• Staff training
• Student Intern/Practicum Training Program

Dr. Pita began his practice in 1991. His emphasis is on clinical and forensic assessments. He also focuses on individual, group, and couple counseling. Additionally, he offers court-ordered therapy, court testimony, and LSOTP adolescent sex offender treatment and assessment. He makes use of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Insight Oriented Therapy, Trauma-Focused-Cogitive Behavior Therapy (TF-CBT), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).

Career History:

• 1991 – Present Independent Practice. Clinical and Forensic Psychology – Dallas and Plano, TX
• 2002 – 2019 Dallas County Juvenile Dept., Chief Psychologist Dallas TX
• 1991 – 2002 Dallas County Juvenile Dept., Asst.Chief Psychologist Dallas, TX
• 2000 – 2019 Adjunct Professor, Clinical Psychology. University of Texas Southwestern Medical School (UT-SWMS, Dallas)
• 1975 -1978 USAF Active Duty
• 1978 – 1981 USAF Active Reserves

Education:

• 1986 -1991 Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School – Dallas, TX. Clinical rotations included the Dallas County Juvenile Department, Southwest Family Institute – family therapy, and Parkland outpatient Psychiatric unit. They also included UT Arlington Student Center, Parkland Psychiatric Emergency Room, and Southwest Medical School Southwest Clinic.
• 1983 -1985 MS degree in Clinical Psychology from Abilene Christian University – Abilene, Texas
• 1982 – 1983 M.Ed. in Counseling and Human Development from Hardin-Simmons University – Abilene, Texas

Areas of Specialization:

• Forensic Evaluations: i.e., custody evaluations, court-related assessments
• Clinical Evaluations: i.e., personality assessment
• Court ordered therapy
• Anxiety and Depression
• Suicidal Ideation/history
• Narcissistic abuse recovery
• Trauma and PTSD
• Adolescent Sex Offender treatment
• Pre-Marital Counseling
• Divorce Recovery
• Anger Management
• Emotional Disturbance/ Emotional Dysregulation
• Family Conflict
• Grief
• Narcissistic Personality (NPD)
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
• Oppositional Defiance (ODD)
• Crisis management

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Allison Rose Pita, MA, LPC, CCTP-II, CATP, C-PD, NATC

Licensed Professional Counselor

I’m a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a therapist, and a child of God. My journey includes both highs and lows, celebrations, and moments of mourning and anxiety. I understand the complexity of life’s transitions and the challenges they bring.

Your Source for Personal Growth

Trauma therapy is a delicate process often paralyzed by the fear of vulnerability. Brene Brown once said, “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” Consider everything you have managed to survive. You exhibit remarkable courage.

As a firm believer in the transformative potential of knowledge, I integrate educational components into my interactions with every client; knowledge imparts empowerment (John 8:32). Being a trauma therapist is an honor, together traversing the road to healing and recovery we will laugh, weep, grieve, celebrate, and rejoice (Romans 12:15).

Through my years of experience as a complex trauma therapist, I have developed a profound compassion for those who have been victimized by abusers. Abuse and trauma have wide-ranging impact, encompassing anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts, hopelessness, despair, loneliness, bereavement, isolation, hurt, overwhelm, confusion, impaired functioning, loss of identity and sense of self, fear, interpersonal difficulties, anger, and mistrust, just to address a few of the outcomes of abuse and trauma.

By request, I provide Christian faith-based counseling. I adopt a Christian worldview and employ therapeutic interventions supported by empirical evidence and biblical principles. I work with children, adolescents, and women of diverse religious and spiritual affiliations and backgrounds. I remain current in the latest research and therapeutic interventions to ensure quality recovery and treatment. I have created a safe environment in which you are able to navigate the most difficult aspects of your life, while I provide you with knowledge and understanding of your experiences, behaviors, and struggles. 

Awestruck, I am granted a front-row seat to the wondrous love and majesty of God through the therapy process. I earnestly pray that your life be filled with happiness and prosperity, notwithstanding any type of adversity that you may have encountered (Isaiah 41:10; Romans 15:13).

You can change and grow. You are powerful, capable, worthy, and invaluable. I believe in you.

I am passionate about your healing.

I am committed to seeing you overcome trauma.

Psalm 107:13-16 “Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. And He saved them from their suffering. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death. And He broke their chains. Let them give thanks to the Lord for His loving-kindness and His great works to the children of men! For He has broken gates of brass and cut through walls of iron.”

Areas of Specialization:

• Complex trauma: the exposure to multiple, chronic, or recurrent traumatic experiences
• Childhood trauma and abuse: past and present
• Narcissistic abuse and psychopathic abuse
• Abuse recovery: physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, and spiritual
• Coercive Control
• PTSD and C-PTSD

Issues I Treat:

• Complex trauma
• Narcissistic abuse and psychopathic abuse
• High conflict divorce and custody trauma-based issues
• Family court child and adolescent therapy
• Abuse recovery: physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, and spiritual
• Coercive Control
• Child abuse: past and present ages five through adulthood
• Divorce recovery
• PTSD and C-PTSD
• Dissociative disorders
• Complicated bereavement (complex grief)
• Conversion disorder (Functional Neurological System Disorder)
• Mass Disaster recovery: i.e. mass shootings, school shootings, etc.
• Life transitions: i.e. healthy transitioning from one stage of life to the next

Education:

• Ph.D. student: Trauma and Developmental Psychology (focus: neuropsychology)
• LeTourneau University, M.A. in Counseling
• LeTourneau University, M.A. in Marriage & Family Therapy
• LeTourneau University, B.S. in Psychology