John Wagner

Dr. Wagner is a licensed psychologist in British Columbia and Director of the DBT Centre of Vancouver. He is a clinical associate at Simon Fraser University and an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Wagner completed a joint 2-year postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Marsha Linehan (founder of dialectical behaviour therapy) at the University of Washington (UW), and with the DBT Center of Seattle. During this fellowship, Dr. Wagner received intensive training and supervision in DBT and other evidence based treatments. He has served as the clinic associate director of the psychology clinic at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and taught graduate level courses on DBT at both the UW and UBC. In addition, he was trained as a DBT adherence coder for Dr. Linehan’s research studies at UW and is a certified clinician by the DBT-Linehan Board of Certification.

Dr. Wagner assists adolescent and adult client's struggling with a variety of problems including depression, anxiety, and other disorders. He does so using evidence-based psychological approaches such as cognitive-behavioural, behavioural, and dialectical behavioural therapies (DBT). He worked for two years as a post-doctoral fellow with Dr. Marsha Linehan, who developed DBT, and has specialized training in working with persons who are having difficulty managing intense emotions and other complex problems including suicidal and self-harming behaviours.

Dr. Wagner helps people through weekly individual therapy sessions; weekly group therapy sessions that involve learning important new skills in the areas of managing your attention (mindfulness skills), managing and coping with emotions (emotion regulation skills), dealing effectively with interpersonal situations (interpersonal effectiveness skills), and tolerating emotional distress (distress tolerance skills); and telephone consultation.