DIO R. GOBDOLD

Integral Health Resources for Emotional Wellness

I was born in a small town in Venezuela known by its music and sunsets, Barquisimeto. The most important years of my upbringing were in Omaha-Nebraska and Binghamton-NY, where I completed most of my elementary years of education. After my parents completed their graduate studies we returned to Caracas-Venezuela. I have always been an immigrant, both in the USA and in my own home country; I embrace the cultural/lexical ambiguity ingrained in me.

In 1998 I completed five years of coursework in Philosophy without thesis to obtain degree at the Caracas Catholic University. Reading philosophy opened my mind to the world and allowed me to explore the arts of writing, acting, teaching, and reproductive print. In 2006, after 6 years of personal psychoanalysis, I went back to school to pursue what I had come to understand as my real passion and gift. I graduated with a BA in Psychology with an emphasis/diplomate in Psycho-Oncology at Caracas Metropolitana University.

After many years of personal analysis, psychotherapy, & psychoanalytic training, I was fully immersed in the mental health field in the city of Caracas. I worked for the public sector for several years helping to establish mental health services for the low income sector, and ultimately established my own practice, seeing patients in a private setting and in a medical setting providing services for cancer patients.

In 2014, I moved to Murrells Inlet, SC, a small beach town and fishing village with sunsets as beautiful as the ones I remember from my hometown in Venezuela. Murrells Inlet has become my home.

I completed a master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling at Webster University in June of 2017. I received temporary associate license to practice counseling in the State of South Carolina in 2017, and full unrestricted license in October 2019. During this time, I had the opportunity to work for Tidelands Health Healthcare System from 2016-2020, providing support services for the seriously ill, while building my private practice during evening hours. In Dec 2020 with the Covid-19 crisis I left the Hospital System and took a part-time position at Little River Medical Center-South Strand, providing Integrated Behavioral Health services in Primary Care Medical setting. In Feb 2022, after the experience of working close to primary care providers in a HRSA (Federally Qualified Health Center), I realized that it was time for me to dedicate full-time to my private practice, and continue my psychoanalytic studies by joining the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas.

I am a Mental Health Professional that has grown and developed between the passion for psychoanalysis, and the need to step out of private, analytical settings to serve in the community where I live and work. My drive for social service has developed through the promotion of psychological services, emotional health education, and awareness of patient's psycho-social needs. I strive to help patients that stumble back and forth in our communities with unresolved, complex, and persistent bio-psycho-social suffering. These patients are usually unacknowledged, disregarded, or deflected by the medical model and the healthcare system.

I am passionate about the development of programs and the design of tools, information, research, and educational strategies to improve psycho-social support services in different settings. I have focused my practice on clients and facilities with critical needs; low income sectors, clients diagnosed with serious illness, children and adolescents with special psycho-social needs, grief and bereavement in children and adults, along with severely traumatized clients or client’s suffering with PTSD.

In working with adolescents, adults and couples, my focus and efforts are centered around unconscious dynamics and self-awareness. In doing so, I thoroughly assess and offer and effective approach for each case.