Keynote Speaker
pat@patdeegan.com | www.commongroundprogram.com
Patricia (Pat) E. Deegan Ph.D. is a principal with Pat Deegan & Associates. For over 30 years Pat has been a thought leader and disruptive innovator in the field behavioral health recovery. Pat founded a company run by and for people in recovery. The mission: To safeguard human dignity by bringing individual voice and choice to the center of the clinical care team. Toward this end, she developed the CommonGround Program that includes the award-winning CommonGround software, the online Recovery Library, the CommonGround Academy for peers and practitioners, and the Hearing Distressing Voices Simulation. Since 2009, Pat has worked as a consultant helping to develop and evolve the OnTrackNYmodel for coordinated specialty care teams for young folks experiencing early psychosis. Pat is an activist in the disability rights movement and has lived her own journey of recovery after being diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager. She has held a number of academic appointments, has numerous publications, and has carried a message of hope for recovery to audiences around the world. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Duquesne University.
