He is a New York State licensed psychologist and
has been serving English ex-patriate community in Seoul since 2003.
As a scholar and practitioner, he studies the suffering of human mind,
self-destructive behaviors and religious aspects of psychology.
He has been serving culturally and religiously diverse population for the past decades.
His efforts to serve the under-served population was recognized by New York Times and other medias.
He and his treatment team value the importance of providing the evidence-based psychotherapy for people who are suffering.
Yong Cho, Ph.D.
CEO of the Tree Group/DBT Center of KoreaㅣChief Psychologist
Dr. Cho is the CEO of the Tree Group. He is a licensed clinical psychologist in the State of New York. He graduated from the University of Utah and received his doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology at the New School for Social Research in New York.
He started his clinical training at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York and in 1998, he continued his training at the Zucker Hillside Hospital / Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
Around the year of 2000, he introduced DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) to Korean speaking immigrants who were experiencing emotion regulation issues for the first time.
His scholarly background on cultural and religious psychology, and suicide prevention helped him approach the diverse population without prejudice in New York region.
While providing his expert service to Jewish community and general population with European descents, he was saddened by the fact that there were so many under-served Asian population in New York districts.
With the generous help from the Zucker Hillside Hospital and his colleagues, he opened the Asian American Family Clinic at the hospital.
His work was featured in the media, such as New York Times, for providing psychological services to multicultural communities.
Dr. Yong cho
The path of Dr. Cho and his treatment team is the walk of people who are suffering.
The four branches of the Tree Group; Center for International Psychological Services, DBT Center of Korea, School of LifeㅣActive Learning Center, the Tree Group Press are the four hands to help all of us who walk this unavoidable path.
In 2003, he was relocated back to Seoul, Korea. He established the Tree group and provided evidence-based treatments, including DBT, PE (Prolonged Exposure) therapy, CBT (Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy) for Korean local communities as well as English speaking ex-patriate communities; those communities had not been served properly with high-quality evidence-based psychological services.
In 2007, Dr. Cho established DBT Center of Korea with the support of its founder, Dr. Marsha Linehan and other experts. His team had completed a full DBT training from Dr. Linehan’s DBT training institute, Behavioral Tech and the team of DBT Center of Korea was being certified. DBT Center of Seattle/Evidence-Based Treatment Center of Seattle provided further supervised training for the team of DBT Korea. In 2008, he invited Dr. Linehan for the monumental DBT Workshop in Korea.
For the past decades, Dr. Cho and his clinical team have been providing clinical services for clients from both Korean and English-language backgrounds and those with traumas, emotion dysregulation and psychological disorders.
He devoted himself to translate Dr. Linehan’s DBT manuals, the first and second editions as well as Dr. Edna Foa’s PE manuals.
His dedication for the under-served population and his pursuit to use his psychological knowledge and skills to relieve suffering has never stopped. For his pro-bono work, in 1995 he developed the first suicide prevention program in the Army of Korea and published the field manual. He outreached the victims of sexual and physical abuse and even torture victims in Korea.
After he came back to Korea, Dr. Cho found so many ex-patriate bilingual children and adolescents who suffer from delay in language transfer and neuro-developmental issues. International schools and boarding schools across the world referred the students whose English capacity could not be improved with their typical western learning disorder or speech-language approach.
Their language delay triggered several emotional, behavioral, social difficulties. Dr. Cho observed those kids and their parents who were suffering deeply. He could not abandon their cry for help and thus, supported them with the psycho-educational treatment programs that facilitate language development and academic adjustment. He launched the School of LifeㅣActive Learning Center in 2010.
The path of Dr. Cho and his treatment team is the walk of people who are suffering. The four branches of the Tree Group; Center for International Psychological Services, DBT Center of Korea, School of LifeㅣActive Learning Center, the Tree Group Press are the four hands to help all of us who walk this unavoidable path.
Dr. Cho and the Tree Group have always been open-minded and welcome anyone who would like to hold hands together and to help our neighbors and ourselves.
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– Licensed Clinical Psychologist in New York (#015603)
– Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at New School for Social Research, New York
– M.A. in Psychology at New School for Social Research, New York
– B.S. in Psychology at University of Utah
Clinical Training & Former Positions
– Adjunct Professor at Ewha Women’s University
– President of the Open Clinic for Human Rights Victims
– Clinical Psychologist at the Zucker Hillside Hospital / North Shore Long Island Health System, New York
– Clinical Psychology Doctoral Internship at the Zucker Hillside Hospital / North Shore Long Island Health System, New York
– Clinical Psychology Externship at the Zucker Hillside Hospital / North Shore Long Island Health System, New York
– Clinical Psychology Externship at Beth Israel Medical Center, New York
