Dana L. Comstock, Ph.D. is a Professor of Counseling and Chair of the Department of Counseling and Human Services at St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, TX. She has been affiliated with the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute (Stone Center, Wellesley College) since 1995 and integrates Relational-Cultural theory (RCT) into her teaching, leadership style, clinical practice and writing.

Among her many publications, she is featured in The Complexity of Connection (Guildford Press, 2004),the first RCT casebook and The Complete Guide to Mental Health for Women (Beacon Press, 2003). She is also the editor of Diversity and Development: Critical Contexts that Shape Our Lives and Relationships (Thomson/Brooks-Cole, 2005),the first developmental text grounded in RCT. This text, which is used across a number of mental health disciplines, was designed to explore how the complexities of diverse developmental contexts impact our collective and individual abilities to create and sustain growth-fostering relationships across the lifespan.  

More recently, Dr. Comstock has partnered with multicultural-social justice leaders and advocates to demonstrate how RCT complements this movement and how other facets of the theory can be utilized to promote unity and vision in the counseling profession. Her latest writing in this area will appear in an upcoming special issue of the Journal of Counseling and Development, which will be entitled Multiculturalism as a Fourth Force in Counseling: Reviewing our Progress and Charting Our Future.

As a social justice and human rights advocate, Dr. Comstock will illuminate and deconstruct how cultural values grounded in Western individualism promote and perpetuate social divides, fear, oppression, humiliation and violence on interpersonal and global levels. Using RCT as a backdrop, she will invite the audience to examine and expand their relational competencies as a means to optimize their efforts to promote and foster human dignity and the well-being of all people.