Staff: Paola M. Contreras, PsyD

Dr. Contreras is a Participatory Action and Qualitative Researcher, psychologist, and psychoanalyst who, for over 20 years, has engaged minoritized communities impacted by trauma. She is the Lead Researcher and founder of the Human Trafficking Community Research Hub (HTCRH) and served as the PI for the HTCRH study titled Attachment Patterns and Existing Challenges in Adults with Experiences of Sex Trafficking and Exploitation. For 15 years, Dr. Contreras has been a leader in the anti-trafficking field. Between 2007-2014 she worked with Project Reach, a program funded by the U.S. Department of Justice to provide training about the psychological consequences of human trafficking to human services providers, including health care providers, law enforcement officers, judges, and attorneys. In 2022, she founded a community psychoanalysis concentration at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, where mental health providers of local community mental health organizations participate in curricula to work with trauma in minoritized communities. At WJC, she is an Associate Professor in the Counseling and Behavioral Health Department and a researcher in PDM&E.  Dr. Contreras has been working with Drs. Suri and Taveira-DIck on delivering an intervention that helps improve interpersonal relationships between behavioral health clinicians and their clients for the last 4 years.