Deah Partak, LCSW, CADCII, ACS

My career began while pursuing my undergraduate degree in Psychology at Illinois State University. At this time, I was also interning and later employed at mental health center working within a psychosocial recovery model designed to support adults experiencing severe and persistent mental illness.  The years I spent in this work, solidified my trust in and value of social connection as a cornerstone of wellness. 

During my Master's training at Loyola University - Chicago, I provided hospital-based psychiatric social work in Chicago's west-side and outpatient therapy in the suburbs.  I realized that, as a white cis woman, there were storylines hidden in plain view that I needed to see and hear.  With a focus on awareness, thus began my personal and professional journey to change the role I play in the story of oppression, privilege, and inclusion. 

After Graduate school, I returned to rural Illinois to support families in crisis, both outreach and office-based. Here I witnessed the devastating impact of trauma on entire families and communities at large. Resiliency and trauma healing were quickly becoming focal points in my career.

In 2009 I moved to Portland to provide in-home counseling and care coordination for adults of Washington County coping with mental illness. In this role, my “in-home” counseling often occurred on the street as many people were without homes.  This led me to focus on the experience of being without a home in Portland. 

I obtained my Alcohol and Drug Counselor Certification and begin offering Dual Recovery Counseling to adults living in a transitional housing facility while they worked towards permanent housing.  If there is one thing this job taught me (and trust me, there is more than one) it is the value of humor. So uniquely human.  It created safety where there was none, hope where it seemed hopeless, and connection where isolation felt eternal.  

In 2011 my career expanded to supporting clinicians; specifically those working in the most demanding and vitally needed settings.  I managed intensive community clinic programs for several years until words such as “burn-out,” “vicarious trauma,” and “compassion fatigue” became real parts of my professional story. 

In 2013, I took a break from my career to allow space for new professional experiences.  I moved to London, UK and worked in Human Resources at a university.  There I gained a new perspective on my professional story and returned to Portland in 2015 to manage a Mental Health Clinic and later manage corrections mental health and supervision & counseling with the Native American Community. At this point, I was ready to switch from management and get back to direct support. And in 2016, I opened Imagine Life Counseling and Consultation.

In 2018, I returned to London, UK. During this time I continued to provide teletherapy to Oregonians. I also took this time to expand my interest in multiculturalism as I obtain my TEFL-certification (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and taught English to children in China.

In 2019 I returned to Portland and became certified as a Compassion Fatigue Professional to allow for my skills, experiences, and understanding to expand to better serve professional helpers suffering from Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma.

Since the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic, I have further embraced the therapuetic nature of existentialism in the treatment of acute stress and historical & community trauma.

I am pleased at where my career has taken me and I am grateful for those who have let me be a witness to their life story.