Dr. Neal Bowen
Individual and Group Supervisor
Dr. Neal A. Bowen (pronouns: he/his/him) serves as a supervisor with Guam-PIC. He has over two decades of experience as a clinician, administrator, and leader in the behavioral healthcare field. He also currently works as the Principal for Alba Consulting, LLC, collaborating with several national consulting firms and with several direct clients. Dr. Bowen earned his Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin following over a decade working in the field of protection of Human Rights in war zones. His studies in psychology were inspired by a Dutch psychologist he met while working amid two simultaneous civil wars on the island nation of Sri Lanka. While working towards his doctorate he founded the Sunrise Center in Austin, which provided mental health services to refugees and asylum seekers. He first worked as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Central Washington University (2002-2005), specializing in the treatment of psychological trauma and multicultural counseling. From there he was recruited to develop the Mental Health Department at Hidalgo Medical Services (2005-2019), a Federally Qualified Health Center serving the Rural and Frontier Southwest Corner of New Mexico. While there, he served as Chief Mental Health Officer, and he successfully guided the growth of the Department from a single part-time social work position to over 34 practitioners delivering evidence-based services in an integrated primary care environment, including the first licensed Crisis Triage Center in the State. Next, he was appointed by the Governor to direct the Behavioral Health Services Division in New Mexico (2019-2023), which is the single state authority for both mental health and substance use disorder services in the state. He guided the Division through a more than 100% increase in funding for publicly funded system, including obtaining congressionally directed funding for innovative programs designed to increase access to the behavioral healthcare (BH) system for under-represented groups across the state. He also guided the BH response to the COVID pandemic while serving on the Emergency Response Function 6 and Medical Advisory Team for the Governor. He also guided the publicly funded system to more than double the number of behavioral health professionals delivering services, and a more than 100% increase in the number of encounters delivered statewide. Additionally, he has served on many Boards (e.g., served as Vice President of the Washington Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development).
