About

Dr. Hans Watson spent the last few years as the Chief Medical Officer and Medical Director at Residential Treatment Facilities that specialize in substance abuse, mental health primary or dual diagnosis.  He has also maintained a robust private psychotherapy practice. 

Previous to his retirement from the military he was the as the lone psychiatrist, a psychotherapist, concurrently served as the medical director for an Air Force Base’s Alcohol and Drug Prevention & Treatment program and their Family Advocacy Program (military’s version of Child & Protective Services).  He is trained in general psychiatry from Wright State University.  He also is also a nationally recognized expert in multiple areas of psychotherapy to include Psychodynamic, Cognitive Behavioral, Cognitive Processing, Prolonged Exposure, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Couples, Marriage & Family, pediatric and more. 

 

His personal interests include Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, neurobiology, Traumatic Brain Injury, neural functioning and psychoanalysis.  He attended West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine and University of Utah for an undergraduate in political science.

 

Dr. Watson is a retired member of the armed forces.  Prior to attending medical school, he enlisted in the Army as an artillery fire direction control specialist.  He attended ROTC at University of Utah, became an Intelligence Officer, and deployed to Afghanistan.  In Afghanistan he was assigned as an infantry embedded trainer (advisor that lives with, trains with and fights alongside the local army unit) for the Afghan National Army.  Upon returning from Afghanistan as a decorated combat veteran and leader, Dr. Watson attended medical school where he chose to enter the field of psychiatry.  

 

Dr. Watson trained in the psychiatric residency at Wright State University.  During residency Dr Watson’s focuses included interplay between psychotherapy and psychopharmacology, psychiatric treatment in intellectual disability, pediatric psychiatry, substance abuse and forensic work in Aviation Psychiatry.  He was one of the two doctors that designed and taught a course designed to train family medicine and internal medicine physicians to work with patients suffering from substance use disorders.  Dr. Watson's course is still being utilized today. 

 

Dr. Watson has personally authored multiple books to include topics such as PTSD, diet and academic success.  He is also a Co-Author on a textbook chapter on Motivational Enhancement Therapy.  He is a nationally renowned keynote speaker for topics ranging from leadership to mental health to psychotherapy and trauma.  He has repeatedly been the trainer for therapists responding to emergency situations such as mass shootings at schools or military mass casualty situations.