Dr. Karen Slaton, who has been at the forefront of psychology’s transition to integrated health care for most if not all of her career, and engaged in practice, research, and teaching, has been named the 2022 Distinguished Psychologist by the Louisiana Psychological Association.

Dr. Slaton is the Program Manager of Behavioral Medicine/Health Psychology/Primary Care  Mental Health Integration at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System. She developed and manages the Primary Care Mental Health Integration Program at the Care  System. She implements the Veterans Administration mandated effort to fully integrate  behavioral health as part of the extended Patient Aligned Care Team. This team consists of  psychiatry, social work, nursing and psychology, and is essential in assuring veteran access to same-day care.

Dr. Slaton also coordinates behavioral medicine services, such as services for pain, palliative  care, cardiology, physical medicine & rehabilitation, and integrated health services (including  yoga and hypnosis).

Dr. Slaton also serves in additional roles including Health Behavior Coordinator, Pain Psychologist, Complimentary Integrated Health VISN lead and Lead Tobacco Cessation Clinician.  She provides health promotion and disease prevention services to veterans such as tobacco cessation and weight loss coaching.

She trains other clinicians in the Interdisciplinary Pain Program, Bariatric Treatment Team, and  Controlled Substances Oversite Board. She collaborates in other teams and committees  including Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Committee, Women’s Health Committee,  Employee Wellness Committee, and the Opioid Safety Initiative.

Dr. Slaton is Clinical Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences at Tulane University School of  Medicine and Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Louisiana State University Health  Sciences Center School of Medicine. She provides invited lectures to trainees in the Tulane  School of Medicine Clinical Psychology Internship Training Program and the LSU School of  Medicine Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Residency Program.

Dr. Slaton is an APA accredited clinical psychology internship and postdoctoral fellowship  Training Committee Member, providing didactic training and supervision to interns and post- doctoral fellows in the areas of primary care mental health and behavioral medicine.

Dr. Slaton is a nationally Approved Consultant in Clinical Hypnosis and a Registered Yoga  teacher.

Dr. Slaton has also owned and operated her own private practice through Northshore  Psychological Services, LLC, Covington, and the Center for Wellness and Peak Performance, LLC,  Covington. She provides a wide range of psychological services including psychotherapy, assessment and evaluation, consultation, and professional training. Her areas include posttraumatic stress disorder, marriage, couples and relationship counseling, food, weight and  body image issues including eating disorders and bariatric psychology, depression, anxiety,  sport and performance psychology, clinical and sports hypnosis, personal growth and  development and counseling patients with medical illness.

Dr. Amanda Raines announced the award in April, at the annual meeting of the Louisiana  Psychological Association. “This award is given to an individual who has made significant  contributions to psychology research, practice, or both, during the course of their career,” said Raines. “This year we are recognizing Dr. Karen Slaton. Dr. Slaton currently serves as the  Program Manager for Primary-Care Mental Health Integration and the Health Behavior  coordinator at the New Orleans VA. She is actively involved in more local and regional committees within the VA than I can count,” Raines said.

“She maintains academic appointments at Tulane and LSU and actively stays involved in both  training and research related endeavors. Dr. Slaton is certified by the American College of  Sports Medicine as an Exercise Physiologist and by the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. She is also a certified & registered yoga teacher and somehow manages to incorporate all of  these skills into her integrative practice at the New Orleans VA.”

Dr. Slaton’s research includes:

Slaton, K. (2000). An investigation of the relationship between  parental bonding and body image disturbance among male and female college students. Dissertation.

Slaton, K. & Lyddon, W. (2000). Cognitive-experiential reprocessing and rape: A case study.  Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 14, 189-200.

Slaton, K. & Westphal, J. (1999). The Slaton-Westphal functional assessment inventory for adults  with serious mental illness: Development of an instrument to measure functional status and psychiatric rehabilitation outcome. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 23, 119-126

Raines, A. M.,  Primeaux, S. J., Ennis, C. R., Walton, J. L., Slaton, K. D., Vigil, J. O., Allan, N. P., Zvolensky, M. J.,  Schmidt, N. B., & Franklin, C. L. (2021). Posttraumatic stress disorder and pain
in veterans: Indirect association through anxiety sensitivity. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Vigil, J.O., Slaton, K.D., Raines, A.M., & Franklin, C.L. (2018, September). Examining the Effects of a Comprehensive Pain Rehabilitation Program among Veterans. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Pain Society, Atlanta, GA.

Lyddon, W., & Slaton, K. (2001). Promoting healthy body image and the prevention of eating disorders among adolescent women. In C. Juntunen & D. Atkinson (Eds.), Counseling strategies  for developmental concerns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Her training lectures are  numerous, and include: Use of Hypnotic Language in Non-hypnosis Clinical Encounters.  Presented at 6th Dabney Ewin, MD FACS Hypnosis Lecture. 2022 Tulane Brain and Behavior Conference.

Primary Care Psychology. Presented to Psychology Interns at Tulane University School of Medicine and Southeast Louisiana Veteran Health Care System.

Motivational Interviewing: Effective Communication with Veterans. Presented at the Southeast  Louisiana Veterans Health Care System 2020 Fall Women’s Health Summit.

Motivational Interviewing Skills for Dealing with Challenging Patient Encounters. Presented at LSUMC PM&R Pain Conference.

Behavioral Intervention for Chronic Pain. Presented at LSUMC Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Resident Didactic Lecture.

Motivational Interviewing. Presented to the LEND program staff at Louisiana State University  School of Medicine.

Motivational Interviewing Skills for Dealing with Challenging Patient Encounters. Presented at LSUMC PM&R Pain Conference.

“My career as occurred in phases,” Dr. Slaton said, “I started in academic medicine at Tulane School of Medicine and like many of my Tulane colleagues, left after hurricane Katrina for  private practice. I enjoyed a thriving practice in Covington for almost a decade before joining  the New Orleans VA 10 years ago. I always say I have the best job ever! I work as a clinical health psychologist in various medicine services and have the privilege of serving Veterans in honor of my grandfather who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his service in WWII,” she said.

“I’m lucky to be able to provide clinical hypnosis to Veterans and to teach hypnosis at the National level for the VA, teach a weekly yoga class to Veterans, lead the Primary Care Mental  Health Integration team, and serve the facility as a consultant for patient education. However,  my favorite part of all is training the next generations of psychologists in our APA accredited  internship and fellowship programs,” Dr. Slaton said