Dr. Gisondo earned a master’s and doctorate degrees in Clinical Psychology from Hofstra University, an American Psychological Association (APA) accredited program in New York, specializing in child, adolescent, and adult assessment/treatment with particular focus on outcomes of various therapies. He holds another master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from The New School for Social Research in New York City with an emphasis on social and abnormal processes.
Dr. Gisondo describes himself as a “lifelong learner.” He is in the process of completing his MBA, which has aided his work with derailed executives facing performance, productivity, and leadership issues in business. He has been trained at the post-doctoral level in several major theoretical traditions including psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, and interpersonal schools of thought at Harvard Medical School, Menninger Clinic, William Alanson White, New England Institute, and Long Island Institute. He also has completed training in cognitive-behavioral theory (CBT) and technique at The Institute for Rational Emotive Therapy and most recently at The Behavior Therapy Training Institute sponsored by International Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation (IOCDF) in Mass General Hospital.
He has extensive experience conducting reviews of treatment and providing second opinions on the quality of care rendered. He has demonstrated expertise in all client/patient populations in various treatment settings for psychiatric as well as alcohol and substance abuse interventions. His leadership and innovation were seen early in his career when he helped open the first voluntary, acute care psychiatric treatment unit within a general hospital and again when he developed and administered the first storefront teen community program for substance abuse in a suburban setting.
He then directed a comprehensive psychological services program within the largest privately-owned hospital system nationally. He has owned and managed several single and multi-specialty small and large private practices.
Dr. Gisondo is also experienced in corporate consulting and has provided consultation services to family-owned businesses, as well as direct interventions for executives working in an intense C-suite environment. Continuing to focus on workplace behavioral healthcare, he directed employee health for a large world-class national laboratory with responsibility for over 12,000 individuals. His programs became the benchmarks nationally as “best practices” in an organizational setting. With his leadership his company was awarded the “Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award” in 2002. He led the review team that brought AAAHC accreditation to his occupational health clinic. Continually involved in direct service as well, he served as a clinical examiner in issues of return to work, fitness for duty, mandatory or “last chance” employee contracts, pre-employment screenings, and clearance for security to carry semiautomatic weapons. He is experienced in making critical judgments in high intensity situations, such as when he made determinations about whether personnel could have unescorted access to a nuclear reactor after receiving treatment for a psychiatric episode. He also served as an expert advisor on hostage negotiation teams. As an additional part of his responsibility, he also served on an Institutional Review Board (IRB) for over 14 years reviewing scientific protocols involving human subjects.
Upon relocating to South Florida, he directed the university counseling and psychological services at a small faith-based, private, highly diverse local university. He was involved in all aspects of student affairs/services including ongoing classroom presentations to undergraduate, graduate, and law school students. His initiatives for student recruitment, involvement, and retention contributed to the university mission of “developing leaders for life”.
He then focused his entrepreneurial efforts on helping to create a unique institute offering empirically supported CBT treatment, clinical training, and research to a specific niche market. The institute became highly successful with treatment refractory patients and is regarded as a center for thought leadership and innovative treatment protocols on an international level. His areas of accountability were to provide leadership and direction for business development while ensuring overall clinical service delivery and quality. He was also responsible for overseeing staff productivity and retention, as well as providing supervision consistent with APA standards and protocols. While at the institute, he became known for providing consultation and treatment for high net-worth individuals, including business owners, executives, celebrities, and sports figures.
After an extensive national search and recruitment effort, he was hired as the Director of Global Employee Assistance Programs at a Fortune 100 company based in the World Financial Center New York City serving approximately 68,278 employees worldwide. His charge was to help create a culture of health and wellness titled “Healthy Living”. Working with their nationally known medical director, his efforts would support future business growth and success through the development of fully integrated employer sponsored services that could respond to the health and productivity challenges. His core functions in program design, provision, development and delivery also provided empirically supported metrics so as to be research ready and integrate with a data driven business model. He also functionally coordinated and integrated with other health services including benefits (health plans), disability management and health promotion. Additionally, he directed the expansion of onsite centers, oversight of vendor contracts for domestic and international EAP services with campaigns including search, recruitment, onboarding and program marketing and launch across all time zones. This organization clearly embraced the understanding of the relationship of health on productivity, satisfaction, engagement and retention and as a Fortune 100 company strives to be in the forefront in a fiercely competitive environment.
He has just completed a two-year project leading investors in finding, building and developing a for-profit luxury 72 bed evidenced- based alcohol/drug and dual diagnosis drug treatment facility on the west coast of Florida. Then recruiting and incorporating a multimodal-multidisciplinary senior leadership team offering a full continuum of care including medically supervised detox., residential, partial hospitalization intensive outpatient, aftercare and alumni services leading to DCF licensure and JCAHO accreditation. His mission was to create treatment and wellness experiences that is a recognized leader in continuous quality patient care through the provision of sound research-based clinical practice and programs, ethical leadership and an innovative approach to the treatment of individuals and their families affected by chemical dependency and related psychiatric disorders.
He has been recognized on a national level as an effective speaker and lecturer on many topics in psychology. He has been quoted in the New York Times, Newsday, and South Florida magazine. He has a faculty appointment at a prominent private university where he teaches undergraduate psychology. He has also been an invited guest lecturer at many local universities and corporations.
Dr. Gisondo’s professional memberships include the American Psychological Association, the Division of Consulting Psychology, the Society of Psychologists in Management, Florida Psychological Association, Committee for the Psychologically Healthy Workplace and the Employee Assistance Professional Association (EAPA). He served as the EAPA past-President on Long Island and then was elected again as President in South Florida for two terms shortly after his relocation. He has served at the board level of other professional associations for many years.
Dr. Gisondo has been licensed as a Psychologist in New York for over 40 years and in Florida for 15 years. He has been a Certified Employee Assistance Professional for 25 years.