About the Author

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1st author Dr. Valerie Stipes is a clinical psychologist that specializes in working with high-risk psychological conditions, especially eating disorders, severe depression and patients in the obsessive-compulsive disorder spectrum. She has also vast experience working with pregnant women and sexual therapy. After working in the typical psychiatric hospital setting, she felt moved by seeing the immense necessity that exists for specialized and individualized treatment programs. This need motivated her to start Viva Clinic in 2014. Her clinic differentiates itself by providing individualized and specialized programs for each patient. Dr. Stipes designs a unique plan for each person integrating an interdisciplinary team to treat every aspect that person needs to heal. She believes that patients can fully recover and aims for that with each program she designs. Apart from the clinical therapies, most programs have activities that the patient enjoys or is interested in learning. She explains, "Not everyone enjoys the same things. Discovering or rediscovering what we love to do is a great tool to use during a difficult time in our lives." Dr. Stipes focuses in her sessions and workbooks on connecting patients to their true self by being more mindful of their emotions, thoughts and inner wisdom. She also works on challenging beliefs as well as thoughts that limit the person to become their full potential. Viva Clinic is located in the beautiful island of Puerto Rico and everyone in the team is fully bilingual offering all therapies in English and Spanish. 2nd author Lyzmar Cordero is a dietitian specialized in treating eating disorders, as well as weight reduction. She has vast experience working with pregnant women, vegetarian and vegan patients as well as people diagnosed with diabetes. She is the founder of Nutritional Impact by Lcda. Lyzmar Cordero. Her office offers different programs from a multidisciplinary approach focusing on meeting each patient's medical nutritional needs as well as achieving emotional and physical wellness. She is a strong believer that food is medicine and can significantly impact your health and life. She aims for people to maintain a healthy lifestyle knowing this will improve their life significantly. She has also developed workshops that focus on different topics for each population she specializes in.