Christine Alvarez, LPC, joined Alaska Behavioral Health in August 2020. Since joining AKBH, Christine has focused on increasing access to care, reducing wait times, implementing evidence-based practice, and expanding crisis and intensive community based services. Prior to joining AKBH, Christine worked as Assistant Executive Director of the Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault Crisis Center of Warren County, the Director of the Counseling Center at Multnomah University, and Team Lead of the Expanded Mobile Crisis Team at Austin-Travis County Integral Care. When not working, Christine enjoys hiking, hockey, and exploring Alaska with her family.

For more information about any of our Adult Services, contact Christine at calvarez@akbh.org.

Sarah has a master’s degree in clinical community counseling.  She has traveled and lived in many states and countries, but consider Fairbanks home. Sarah enjoys the Alaskan summer and all that comes with that: hiking and exploring lakes and rivers. She has worked with a wide range of mental health issues in both inpatient and outpatient care, with adults and children.  Her passion lies in the community counseling setting.

Dr. Hugh Leonard earned his Ph.D. in clinical-community psychology jointly offered at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the University of Alaska Anchorage. Prior to graduate school, he worked on Dr. Marsha Linehan’s randomized controlled trial assessing the efficacy of DBT for Adolescents. During graduate school, Dr. Leonard trained in various treatment modalities and settings, including outpatient, intensive outpatient, behavioral medicine, and was a founding member of the UAF DBT program where he treated patients with BPD.

Dr. Leonard completed an APA-accredited pre-doctoral internship in clinical-community psychology at Yale School of Medicine as a DBT Fellow. While at Yale School of Medicine, he was intensively trained in DBT and in the DBT for Prolonged Exposure Protocol for PTSD. Dr. Leonard went on to complete an APA-accredited post-doctoral residency in clinical psychology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center where he served as assistant clinical director of the CBT/DBT program in the Adult Outpatient Clinic. While at Harbor-UCLA, he provided training, supervision and consultation in CBT and DBT to Los Angeles County mental health clinicians. Dr. Leonard is a certified CBT therapist through the Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies and serves as clinical training manager and clinician at Alaska Behavioral Health.

Dr. Dianna Rehn earned her Doctor of Psychology (Psy D) in clinical psychology at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.  While in graduate school she completed a number of training experiences in a variety of settings including outpatient clinics, a partial hospitalization program, an inpatient psychiatric hospital, providing crisis work in an emergency room, and an intensive outpatient program.  Dr. Rehn continued her training through her APA-accredited pre-doctoral internship through the Alaska Psychology Internship Consortium.  Her primary placement was at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, and she also completed a mini-rotation that involved traveling to Nome, Alaska and learning about behavioral healthcare in rural settings.

After graduating, Dr. Rehn has worked as a forensic evaluator for the State of Alaska and as a senior clinician at Alaska Behavioral Health.  She is a licensed clinical psychologist in Alaska and is a credentialed Health Service Psychologist through the National Register of Health Service Psychologists.  Dr. Rehn is a Board-approved supervisor for masters-level clinicians, and as part of her role provides supervision for licensure.  She also enjoys working with students and supervises masters-level and doctoral-level students completing both practicum and pre-doctoral internships.  In addition to her role supervising students and clinicians, Dr. Rehn performs psychological testing for all ages and provides therapy to clients on the Folker outpatient team.

Paul Fergeson has a Bachelor’s in Psychology from Texas Tech University and a Master’s in Psychology from Queens College (City University of New York).  Paul has been in the field of Psychology for 30 years and has worked as a: Health Scientist, Associate College Professor and Mental Health Clinician, in New York City, San Francisco, Texas, Virginia, Vermont and now Alaska.  His scientific work was published in: Journal of Addictions, Biological Psychiatry, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Alcoholism Clinical & Experimental Research & Archives of General Psychiatry.  Paul’s training in counseling includes approaches from: Client-Centered, Humanism, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Crisis Interventions, Positive Psychology, and Transpersonal Psychology.   Relocating to “The Most Beautiful State of Alaska” and working for Alaska Behavioral Health has been a dream come true for Paul, as he loves all things Alaskan, fishing, hunting, camping, skiing, hiking, snow machining & even berry picking.

Amanda Forsting, M. Ed. is a Clinician in Fairbanks. She started with Alaska Behavioral Health as a Case Manager in 2018 while completing her degree and internships at University of Alaska Fairbanks. She began her journey in mental health in 2014 working on mobile crisis outreach teams in Colorado and eventually moved to Texas where she did the same. After graduating in December 2020, she became a Certified Clinical Trauma Specialist Individual (CCTSI) through the Trauma Institute International and plans to continue to specialize in grief and trauma while completing supervision for licensure. She loves to spend time with her family in the summers traveling and sight-seeing around Alaska, camping, boating, fishing, and driving. She also loves reading, photography, music, comedy, and live theater.

Alicia Lamar, M. Ed. enjoys walking, hiking, and gardening. She loves living in Fairbanks in the summers, but is not too thrilled about the winter (though she thinks winter is beautiful!) Alicia started working with us as an intern (when we were called Fairbanks Community Mental Health Services.) She enjoys being part of a great team and working with all the staff and the clients.

Emilie Loran, M.S., started with Alaska Behavioral Health as a clinical intern in August of 2020 and joined the team as a clinician in May of 2021. She is passionate about helping folks meet their goals and develop the skills needed to live life in a direction that works for them. Alongside her work at AKBH, Emilie is a doctoral student in Clinical-Community Psychology. When not working or doing school (which is admittedly what she spends most of her time doing), she enjoys hiking, skate-skiing, cooking, reading, and spending time with friends and family.

Emily McClelland, MSW has been with Alaska Behavioral Health since May 2020.  She is a life-long Alaskan and enjoys going on walks to soak up the summer sun, reading, and arts and crafts.

Her passion is helping adults with anxiety, depression, substance abuse disorders, PTSD, personality disorders, and other mental disorders to create fulfilling lives. In order to do so, Emily uses a strengths-based approach along with CBT, mindfulness strategies, and other therapies with clients. Emily believes that the most important part of therapy is trust between the clinician and the client so that they can work together towards making positive changes.

Wanda has lived in Alaska since 2005. She moved to North Pole, Alaska from Christmas, Florida with her 3 children. She is originally from Los Angeles County California. While growing up, she was a big part of her sister’s life. That sister was diagnosed with a development disability and later in life with Bipolar disorder, and her sister has been an inspiration to her.  Wanda also has a son and nephew both diagnosed with mental illness. She has worked in the mental health field for a little over 10 years now and enjoys working with her clients.

She enjoys spending time with her family including her pets, drawing, gardening, and other arts and crafts.

Carl Rayburn has a B.A. in psychology from the University of North Texas and has called Alaska home for over 25 years. He has more than 27 years of experience working with both children and adults as a case manager, family treatment coordinator, as well as in foster care licensing and substance abuse treatment. He has been instructor in several forms of Crisis Management including NCI, CPI, MANDT as well as self defense. He enjoys what he does immensely as every day is different, and he loves the team he works with. He loves his clients, and has known some of them for more than 20 years!  Carl is  married with three teenage boys, and enjoys hunting, hiking, fishing, and cooking.