Co-Founder + Executive Director

Uses She/Her pronouns

Lexi Giblin, PhD, CEDS  (#PY00003876) (she/her) is a psychologist, leader, radically open dialectical behavior therapy (RO DBT) specialist, mother, design enthusiast, and podcaster. In 2012, she co-founded Opal: Food + Body with her beloved friends and colleagues, Julie Church, RDN, CD, CEDRD and Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS.  Lexi is known for calmly holding both vulnerability and strength in her leadership style.  As Executive Director, she leads Opal with a passion for re-envisioning higher level of care eating disorder treatment from a Health at Every Size and RO DBT perspective.  She hopes for Opal to be a place of healing for clients, staff and leadership alike. 

 

Lexi’s lived experience reverberates in her work and the founding of Opal. Her formative years were marked by chronic mental health problems in her family of origin.  The impact of this created a deep empathy for mental health suffering as well as a profound belief in transformation through facing challenges.  With this, a lifelong interest in using life’s suffering as a source of growth, learning, change and connection was born. Opal was founded with this at its core: as a community where people can come to receive help in making it through tough times in a way that gets them closer to the life they want to live.  She brings this mission to her leadership of Opal’s Intake Department where she understands the importance of new clients finding kindness and welcoming during potentially one of the most vulnerable times of their lives. Lexi sees connection, facing fears and self-inquiry as key components of her own journeys through difficulty to growth and offers leadership in these areas to the Opal community.  She has led weekly Facing Fears Group since Opal opened and guides both clients and staff alike in a self-inquiry practice from a RO DBT perspective. 

 

In 2004, Lexi received her doctorate in counseling from the University of Washington. From there, she lectured in the UW Psychology Department and held a private practice for eight years before opening Opal.  She is a RO DBT Alumni Senior Clinician and leads Opal’s RO DBT team.