Deborah Kanter, PhD (She/Her)
Director of Group Programming
Dr. Deborah Kanter is a full-time licensed psychologist at CBC who works with children, adolescents, adults, and families. Dr. Kanter has extensive training in Cognitive & Behavior Therapies (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). She is a board-certified clinician by the DBT-Linehan Board of Certification and a certified Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) therapist. Dr. Kanter specializes in treating clients with a range of difficulties including anxiety, OCD, behavioral challenges, depression, personality disorders, suicidality, and self-injury. At CBC, she supervises trainees and staff and directs the CBT and DBT group programming. She also provides DBT training and consultation to external individuals and agencies.
Dr. Kanter earned her Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Clinical-Developmental Psychology from York University in Toronto, Canada. She also completed a diploma in Health Services and Policy Research. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in English Literature from McGill University. After completing her Bachelor’s degree, she worked as a research assistant at the NYU Child Study Center on a randomized control trial of an aggression prevention program. The following year, she was a research assistant at Columbia University and managed data for a school-based mental health screening program.
Dr. Kanter completed her pre-doctoral internship at the London Health Sciences Center, in London, Canada. On internship, Dr. Kanter worked in hospital inpatient and outpatient settings and provided individual interventions for children and adults with a variety of mood, anxiety, trauma, personality, medical, and co-occurring mental health and substance use concerns. These interventions were predominately CBT and DBT. She also conducted diagnostic assessments and co-led DBT Skills and Trauma Psychoeducation groups. Following internship, Dr. Kanter conducted assessments, provided individual therapy, and co-led DBT skills groups at Broadview Psychology, a prominent DBT practice in Toronto, Canada. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at CBC.
Dr. Kanter completed clinical externships in several settings. She conducted psychoeducational assessments at the Toronto District School Board, provided psychodynamic play therapy at the Hincks-Dellcrest Center, and provided CBT for adolescents with mood and anxiety disorders at Markham-Stouffville Hospital. At the York University Psychology Clinic, she received additional training in the Secret Agent Society: Operation Emotion Regulation Program and in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT). Dr. Kanter has a keen interest in supervision and has supervised doctoral-level graduate students across these settings.
Dr. Kanter has co-authored several publications and presented her research on childhood aggression and risk assessment at numerous national and international conferences. Dr. Kanter is an active member of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) and the American Psychological Association (APA).