Joseph W. La Fleur, MSW, LICSW, MBA, Named a Worldwide Who's Who Professional of the Year for Excellence in Mental Health Care

    WASHINGTON, DC, June 20, 2013 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Joseph La Fleur, MSW, LICSW, MBA, Psychotherapist at La Fleur Counseling, has been named a Worldwide Who's Who Professional of the Year in Mental Health Care. While inclusion in Worldwide Who's Who is an honor, only a small selection of members in each discipline are chosen for this distinction. These special honorees are distinguished based on their professional accomplishments, academic achievements, leadership abilities, years of service, and the credentials they have provided in association with their Worldwide Who's Who membership.

Mr. La Fleur has thirteen years of experience in the field of behavioral health, both in private practice as a psychotherapist and as a program director for a mental health insurance company. For the past seven years, he has treated patients as a psychotherapist at La Fleur Counseling. Utilizing his expertise in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, he helps people with such issues as troubled relationships, depression and anxiety, life transitions, college life, intimacy, sexuality and grief. A licensed independent clinical social worker, Mr. La Fleur works with young adults and adults of all sexual orientations and ethnicities. He creates a safe, comfortable environment for his patients to share and explore thoughts and areas they want to work on. He usually sees about three patients per evening.

In addition to running his psychotherapeutic practice, Mr. La Fleur serves as a program director for Beacon Health Strategies LLC, a behavioral health maintenance organization. The company is headed by industry-leading behavioral health experts, and managed and advised by nationally recognized medical, behavioral, human services, and pharmacy clinicians. As a program director for the organization, Mr. La Fleur collaborates with district and state agencies on mental health policy and clinical issues. He works with providers of mental health services, makes care decisions for patients needing services and assists with policy decisions. He also manages a staff of six.

With success in dual careers, Mr. La Fleur credits his ability to network and being a good bureaucrat. His entrance into his profession came soon after he earned a Bachelor of Science in psychology from the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. While he planned to go back to school to further study psychology, he started working for inpatient facilities, writing policies and procedures. At the age of 23, he began to work with family doctors and primary care physicians, learning about and treating patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, childhood depression and anxiety. He helped with testing, and started to build a large client list with physicians in the rural area of Louisiana in which he lived. Mr. La Fleur sought out investors and opened four mental health clinics and a substance abuse clinic in the state at the age of 25. The state cut funding for health services, and his company closed four years later.

Mr. La Fleur then returned to school, where he earned a Master of Social Work from Tulane University in 1998. He subsequently moved to Washington, D.C., and worked with the chronically mentally ill homeless population. He received an MBA, with a concentration in finance, from Trinity University in 2007. He also underwent training in modern perspectives and psychoanalytic psychotherapy at the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis, in which he holds a certificate. In the not too distant future, Mr. La Fleur plans to decide whether to stay in the insurance part of business or make his psychotherapy practice a full-time proposition.

For more information about La Fleur Counseling, visit http://www.districtcounseling.com.

About Worldwide Who's Who
With over 500,000 members representing every major industry, Worldwide Who's Who is a powerful networking resource that enables professionals to outshine their competition, in part through effective branding and marketing. Worldwide Who's Who employs similar public relations techniques to those utilized by Fortune 500 companies, making them cost-effective for members who seek to take advantage of its career enhancement and business advancement services.

Worldwide Who's Who membership provides individuals with a valuable third-party endorsement of their accomplishments, and gives them the tools needed to brand themselves and their businesses effectively. In addition to publishing biographies in print and electronic form, it offers an online networking platform where members can establish new professional relationships.

For more information, please visit http://www.worldwidewhoswho.com.

Contact:
Ellen Campbell
Director, Media Relations
[email protected]

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