PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Dr. Stephanie G. Thompson, LCSW

Stephanie is the Program Director for Center for Discovery’s Del Mar Residential Treatment Center overseeing the day to day clinical and administrative operations of the facility. She earned her Doctor of Social Work and Master of Social Work degrees from the University of Southern California where she focused on Leadership, Management and Innovation at the doctoral level and Mental Health and Medical Social Work at the master’s level. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Science, Biological Science and Mathematics from La Sierra University, and an Associate of Arts degree in Early Childhood Development and Education from Santa Ana College.

Stephanie has extensive experience in clinical social work in a variety of settings such as inpatient hospitalization, emergency services, intensive outpatient programs, private practice, primary care, and military mental health for the United States Navy. Stephanie specializes in the treatment of trauma, historical abuse, severe mental illness, and co-occurring disorders including addiction through the application of resiliency-building modalities including CBT, DBT, Mindfulness, CPT, ACT, PST, MI and Gestalt Therapy. Additionally, she is a member of the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals and National Association of Social Workers. Stephanie believes that management of symptoms and recovery from illness are possible when opportunity and resources are made available in a supportive environment.

In her spare time, Stephanie enjoys beach walks, antique shopping, painting, spending time with her family and puppies, and researching the culture, architecture and history of Japan.

DIRECTOR OF DIETARY SERVICES - ADULT ED RTC

Jamie Atkins, RD, CEDRD

Jamie Atkins RD, CEDRD, is the Director of Dietary Services for the Adult RTC at Center for Discovery.  She has a passion for helping people meet their nutritional needs without losing sight of the social and emotional value of food. With a non-judgmental approach, Jamie helps people create a healthy relationship among food, mind, & body.  She believes in helping her clients to find their own path, thus allowing them to take ownership of their recovery, and at times does so utilizing a DBT informed approach she developed for Dietitians.  She has worked in the field for over a decade, and has experience working in all levels of care; hospitalization, residential treatment, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and outpatient.

Jamie is a Licensed Body Positive Facilitator and is an advocate for putting an end to weight stigma while spreading the message of size acceptance through speaking publicly on the topic across the country.  She has also spoken on various other topics related to eating disorders at the national and international level.  She is active in the community, both by raising eating disorder and weight stigma awareness and being on the board of the Los Angeles Chapter of the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals (iaedp) serving as the Social Media Chair, and Association of Size Diversity and Health serving as a Member At Large.  Jamie believes the most important step in helping a client on the path to recovery is meeting them where they are, and helping them to build a recovery they can see for themselves, bringing together mind, body, and soul.

PRIMARY THERAPIST

Hala Khamis, AMFT

Hala is a primary therapist at Center for Discovery that loves working in the mental health field. She has been a primary therapist at the Del Mar residential location since December 2020. Hala began her experience in working with eating disorders at the UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center and has been passionate about the population ever since. Her experience includes working as a therapist for children with various eating disorders and co-occurring disorders such as, Depression, Anxiety and OCD. While working as an MFT trainee she also had the opportunity to provide DBT skills training and process therapy to parents of the children in treatment.

Hala received her BS in Psychology with a concentration in clinical psychology from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and received her MA in Marital and Family Therapy from the University of San Diego. Hala is a registered Associate Marriage & Family Therapist (AMFT #122794)

Hala looks forward to work each day, with opportunities to gain new insights and learn from her patients through their work together. She uses elements of DBT, family systems, cognitive behavioral therapy, and strengths-based therapy to help her patients meet their individual goals.

REGISTERED DIETITIAN

Sheri Chen, RD

Sheri Chen is a Registered Dietitian specializing in the treatment of eating disorders, emotional eating, unhealthy relationships with food and exercise, and other disordered eating patterns. Sheri graduated from the University of Arizona where she earned her Bachelor’s in Nutritional Sciences, and Master’s in Applied Nutrition. She completed her clinical dietetic internship at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, TX.

Sheri believes in a Health at Every Size® approach and is an “anti-diet” dietitian. Her approach comes from the philosophy that All Foods Fit—in balance, variety, and moderation. Sheri strives to create a safe place for people of any body size or shape.

Sheri’s mission as a clinician is to provide professional, compassionate, and transparent individualized nutritional counseling to help patients rebuild and nurture a healthy relationship with food and their body

PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES

Dr. Nicole Posner, MD

Nicole Posner, M.D. is a psychiatrist in private practice in San Diego specializing in both psychopharmacology and psychotherapy.  Dr. Posner trained in psychiatry at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and has obtained post-graduate training in psychotherapy at the San Diego Psychoanalytic Institute and at Columbia University Psychoanalytic Training and Research.  Identified as an eating disorder expert, she has been featured on national television and served as the president of the San Diego Chapter of the International Eating Disorder Association.

PHYSICIAN

Dr. Martin Schulman, MD

A native of Long Beach, California, Dr. Schulman majored in biochemistry at UC Berkeley in 1981. He graduated from the UC San Diego School of Medicine in 1985 then completed the Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program in Long Beach in 1988. After spending a year working in a small group practice, he joined the clinical faculty at UC San Diego, where he spent the next 15 years splitting his time between administrative, clinical, and teaching duties.

In 2005 Dr. Schulman opened a solo family medicine practice in nearby Encinitas but he maintains his ties to the UC San Diego Medical Center as an affiliate medical staff member and a non-salaried clinical professor of family medicine. Prior to joining Center for Discovery, he spent four years as the medical consultant for a eating disorders residential treatment center for adolescents and adults.

NURSE ADMINISTRATOR

Sydney Harris, RN

Sydney has worked as the Nurse Administrator for Center for Discovery since August 2018 and has over 4.5 years of nursing experience in a variety of settings. Some of her other nursing experience includes caring for active-duty Marines on Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base, caring for severely autistic children in an elementary school setting, as well as working with mothers and newborns on the post-partum unit.

Sydney loves the diversity and challenge that the nursing profession brings, and truly enjoys being able to make a difference in her patient’s lives. Working with mental health, she has been able to gain incredible insight and knowledge that helps her to become a better nurse each and every day.