Mission & Vision Statement

Concordant with the values and objectives of The Institute for Clinical Social Work, the Joseph Palombo Center for Neuroscience and Psychoanalytic Social Work is an interdisciplinary center whose:

Mission is to maximize the effectiveness of mental health services to children, adolescents, and adults through the integration of neuroscience and psychoanalytic social work by offering educational opportunities to professionals and the lay public.

Vision is to enhance the mental health of children, adolescents, and adults by integrating neuroscience and psychoanalytic social work.

Contributions to Mental Health

The Center promotes clinical education and practice as Joseph Palombo inspired generations of clinicians to question and think about their clinical work. Palombo’s unique contributions to theory and practice offer new ways to understand human development. Additionally, his contributions to understanding neurocognitive challenges and the necessary accommodations for living in the world have increased the empathy and understanding for the neuro-atypical person.

The Center provides a forum to push academic and neuroscience research findings into the mainstream of the helping professions. The Center’s mission is an effort to translate and disseminate neuroscience research to all mental health professions. The Center’s programs and communications efforts are a unique contribution serving many disciplines.

While pushing “cutting edge” knowledge, the Palombo Center’s clinically focused educational programs encourage all the helping professions to engage in critical thinking about their particular fields and practices. The Center seeks to promote collaboration and innovation while while stemming the flow of fuzzy thinking and insufficient information.

Fellowship Opportunity

In 2021, the Palombo Center created a Fellowship Program for Ph.D. students enrolled in the clinical social work program at ICSW. ICSW students can apply through a competitive process to become a Palombo Center Fellow. The 2021- 2022 Palombo Fellow explored how a somatic focus on complex trauma may contribute to a more profound understanding of race, diversity, and equality practices in clinical social work.

Doranna Tindle:

Year as Fellow: 2021-2022

I am a mother, clinician, teacher, and transformational leader who is deeply committed to helping people use their bodies and stories to heal and transform. I have always been attuned to the suffering of others. Even as a little girl, I can remember seeing people in situations that robbed them of their dignity, safety, belonging, or purpose, and knowing that this was not supposed to be the fate of any human being. This intuitive understanding has been somewhat of a North Star for me throughout my life. It has been there when I have lost my way and fallen into unnecessary suffering but maybe even more importantly it has guided me into the work of healing and transformation: first as a teacher, school and district leader, using the tools of curriculum and culture to help students and families move toward greater possibility and opportunity in communities where addiction, poverty, and trauma were more likely to be found than high-performing schools, grocery stores with fresh produce, and crisp, clean air. I am still driven by the desire to alleviate human suffering, to create spaces for healing and transformation, to share in the beauty and joy that is always just underneath the pain, to be both an architect and citizen of the Beloved Community.

Alexia lives in Houston and has had an outpatient practice in both central Houston and The Woodlands, TX for over 26 years where she offers individual and family psychotherapy, consultation, and clinical supervision. She holds B.A. degrees from the University of Texas at Austin in Art History and Psychology and an M.S.W. from the University of Houston and is currently in her 3rd year of a Ph.D. program at the Institute for Clinical Social Work Chicago.

She is a second year Joseph Palombo Center Fellow working to integrate current neuroscience findings into psychodynamic theory and practice. She plans to research detachment as a counterpoint to attachment and is specifically interested in its implications for affect regulation and healthy relationships.

Alexia Camfield, LCSW-S:

Year as Fellow: 2022-2023 & 2023-2024

Hannah Klawes interned at The Joseph Palombo Center for Neuroscience and Psychoanalytic Social Work at the Institute of Clinical Social Work where they collaborated with and were educated by experts in the field. They also have several years of experience working with neurodivergent adolescents. As a proud member of the neurodivergent community, Hannah is very invested in providing accessible treatment that caters to the unique needs of neurodivergent clients and addressing harm these clients may have faced in previous therapy experiences. Similarly, they are attuned to the unique needs of the queer and trans community, of which they are also a proud member.

Internship Opportunity

In 2021, the Palombo Center partnered with the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago to provide a first-year master’s student in social work an internship at the Center. Last year’s intern worked closely with a JPC advisor to engage in the public dissemination of neuroscience discoveries and actively translating these discoveries into social work training and practice. Additionally, through our affiliation with the Institute for Clinical Social Work (ICSW), the student was provided hands-on, meaningful social work practice experiences with extensively trained social workers and psychologists.

Hannah Klawes - Intern 2020-2021

Sabina Lumesberger is a 2021/2022 social work intern at the Joseph Palombo Center and Institute of Clinical Social Work, and is also a first year Social Work Master’s student at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice (formerly School of Social Service Administration). Sabina was born and raised in a small town in Austria/Europe, and has a Bachelors in Social Work from the Management Center Innsbruck and a Bachelors in Political Science from the University of Salzburg (Austria).

Before starting the program at UChicago, Sabina worked in an assisted living project with unaccompanied minors in Salzburg.

Weiqi Zhong - Intern 2022-2023

Sabina Lumesberger - Intern 2021-2022

Weiqi Zhong is a graduate school student at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. This fall, she joined the Institute for Clinical Social Work as an intern.

Weiqi worked as a counselor’s assistant in a vocational school and a mental health counseling firm in China. Her job included:

Providing screening to people who had psychological hospitalization records in the local community.
Following up on students who had suicidal tendencies.
Creating mental health-related educational content for the firm's social media account.

For her future career, Weiqi hopes to go on to clinical therapy, focusing on adolescent mental health and family conflict.

Founding Executive Director

About Joseph Palombo

Joseph Palombo is a clinical social worker.

He is the Distinguished Director Emeritus, of The Joseph Palombo Center for Neuroscience and Psychoanalytic Social Work, Founding Dean and Faculty Member, Institute for Clinical Social Work, Chicago, and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (IL).

The Board of Trustees of the Institute for Clinical Social Work established the Joseph Palombo Center for Neuroscience and Psychoanalytic Social Work to honor Joseph Palombo for his dedication and devotion, over the 55-year period of his career, to the improvement of the lives of children, adolescents, and adults with neurobehavioral problems and to furthering the education of clinical social workers.

Joseph Palombo was born in Cairo, Egypt and immigrated to the United States when he was 19 years old to pursue his education. He matriculated to the New School for Social Research, in New York City, a home for progressive thinkers which provided opportunities for deep inquiry, not at all surprising that Joe enrolled at this school (1954). He continued his education at Yale University where he received a Master’s Degree in Philosophy (1957).

With this foundation, Joe moved to the Midwest to attend the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. During this time, he met and married Dorothy Denton, also a social worker whose career path led her to be a recognized community activist and esteemed agency administrator. Throughout their 60-year marriage, Joe and Dottie nurtured and enriched each other’s professional and personal lives.

Among his honors are:

Honorary Member, American Psychoanalytic Association.
The Establishment of the Joseph Palombo Center for Neuroscience and Psychoanalytic Social Work, at the Institute for Clinical Social Work
The Pearl H. Rieger Award, Rush Neurobehavioral Center for having made a significant contribution to the lives of children with neurobehavioral issues.
Doctor of Humane Letters, Institute for Clinical Social Work, Chicago.
The Edna Reiss-Sophie Greenberg Davis Chair, Reiss-Davis Child Study Center.
Recognizing Outstanding Profession in the Field of Child/Adolescent Mental Health.