Dr. Pollie Bith-Melander (AKA Dr. Pollie) was born in Cambodia and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 10 years old. She received her BA in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley, her masters and PHD degrees from the University of Hawaii-Manoa. She received her Master’s degree in Social Work from California State University at East Bay. Her research focus is on ethnomedicine, Trauma, Refugees and Community Mental Health. She spent the past 20 years conducting research studies on how trauma affecting people and communities. One of her research studies focuses on the misdiagnosing of children in urban public schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. A former faculty member at San Jose State, she is now an Assistant Professor of Social Work at CSU Stanislaus. She brings to her clinical work a deep understanding of communities impacted by trauma, especially transgenerational/complex trauma. As a refugee from Cambodia herself, she has first-hand experience and knowledge of how these traumatic experiences impact us all.
She specializes in anxiety disorder/panic disorder, PTSD in children, specific age groups and focus on work with military, children with divorce and trauma. Her clinical approach is a blend of psychotherapies with emphasis on narrative and cross-cultural perspectives.