ALICE THIE VIEIRA, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST
Alice attended Mayfield Senior School in Pasadena for her four high school years. She was the Student Body President in her Senior year. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of California at Berkeley. When she graduated from Berkeley she began teaching at her alma mater, Mayfield, when her former Principal, Mother Mary Wilfrid asked her to teach Math, Physics and PE, -which she did for 3 years.. While teaching realized that she loved counseling with her students more than classroom teaching.
She attended California State College at Los Angeles and received her first master’s degree in Counseling and Guidance. She was offered a counseling position at Covina High School followed by an offer to be the Dean of Girls there. San Gabriel High School then asked her to be the first Dean of Girls there where she did most of her “discipline” by doing group counseling. She wrote an article in Irving Berkovich’s book, When Schools Care as well as numerous articles in the Los Angeles Newsletters on a new way to “discipline” young teenagers.
During that time she was particularly impressed with students who attended counseling from the Gilfillan Clinic in Rosemead. She made an appointment with John T. Gilfillan, M.D. of that clinic and asked him to train her to be on his staff as a therapist. He was reluctant but liked “her spirit’ and determination so combined with her Master’s in Counseling and Guidance and her intense interest in helping people, he supervised her closely and welcomed her to his staff in evenings and Saturdays. As as a result of both these things she received her Marriage, Family and Child counseling License, which she holds today (now known as the MFT License (Marriage, Family Therapy).
When out of the blue, she got a call from Mayfield Senior School to be Headmistress of Mayfield (Principal) as the first non-num head of their school, she accepted. After 4 years, she realized, once again, that she wanted to work with people in a counseling/psychotherapy role. As she began researching graduate schools, she accepted a job as Assistant Principal in charge of Counseling and Guidance, where she was determined to enable the 9 counselors at the very large Edison High School, in Huntington Beach, to be personal and college counselors and not merely to work with class sizes and get students in classes
Finally she left education and received a second Master’s degree in Psychology and her Doctorate (Ph.D.) degree in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology (now Alliant University). Dr. Vieira was also trained in Gestalt Therapy (Jim Simkin) in the summers.
Dr. Vieira has been in private practice as a clinical psychologist since the early 80’s when she received her doctorate and her license. She specializes in adult individual and group psychotherapy. She sees couples in pre-marital and marital counseling. Dr. Vieira’s primary mode of treatment is psychodynamic. She is also trained in and will use other approaches such as behavioral, existential, family systems, developmental and/or psych-educational.
She has taught College and Career Planning at Pasadena City College and Supervised Counselors in training at the University of California in Irvine (UCI)
Her specialty for many years was in assessment, and most particularly in the use of the Rorschach where she was also an Assistant to John Exner, Ph.D., at his workshops throughout the United States.
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At a personal level, Dr. Vieira collects and studies semi-precious stones, shells and Indian artifacts of which her partner has extensive knowledge.
Her hobbies include going on hikes and she thoroughly enjoys her “fur babies.” She has 4 cats: “Baby”, the mama to “Manny”, the black Tabby, “Mosey” (or Moses), the golden brown Tabby, and “Precious,” the white Siamese (yes, a female sibling) as well as her regularly visiting Squirrels, birds, hummingbirds and Monarch butterflies.
Her partner is an internationally known Blues musician, and has created an amazingly beautiful garden for her to enjoy, with fresh fruit and a glorious array of colorful flowers and a fascinating variety of succulents.
Her passion is writing. She has written six books (the last two are not for public sale as names have not been changed “to protect the innocent!”) My Father Was Right; I Turned Out OK and Speaking Through Life. She is in the process of writing several new books on dreams, and biographies of her mother and her partner, Al Blake.