The New Mexico Primary Care Association has selected Dr. Neal Bowen as the New Mexico Mental Health Provider of the year. This Prestigious award is given to health providers that demonstrate distinctive service to their communtiy that is above and beyond "the standard". Dr. Bowen currently serves as the Mental Health Director for HMS. In addition to his responsibilities with HMS, he is also an adjunct faculty member at Western New Mexico University.

Dr. Neal Bowen, PhD, was named by the New Mexico Primary Care Association as the New Mexico Mental Health Provider of the Year.

Dr. Bowen earned his BA degrees in Psychology in Milan, Italy and from the University of Texas, where he also earned a Masters in Educational Psychology and a doctorate in Counseling Psychology. Dr. Bowen left the faculty of Central Washington University in 2005 to join Hidalgo Medical Services, a non-profit community health center with 11 locations in Grant and Hidalgo counties of New Mexico.  Dr. Bowen provides therapy in several languages; English, Spanish and Italian  and specializes in migration and acculturation issues, trauma and mood and personality disorders. Dr. Bowen also conducts research in the area of ethnic identity development and the impact on psychotherapeutic outcomes. Dr. Bowen founded the Sunrise Center, a mental health clinic for refugees and immigrants in Austin, TX.  Dr. Bowen has also served as a member of the New Mexico Counseling Association.

Dr. Bowen is the Mental Health Director and dedicated member of the Senior Management Team at HMS.   Dr. Bowen recognizes the needs of the underrepresented minority populations he serves in southwest New Mexico.  He continues to examine these needs and addresses them through the development and implementation of mental health services for our community.  In many cases, the services listed below would not be available if not for Dr. Bowen’s dedication and insight.

HMS Pain Program. – Dr. Bowen recognizes that our community members have lacked valuable knowledge and tools needed to identify and deal with pain.  Pain and its effects on overall health and well being can often be overlooked.  By developing the HMS Pain Program, patients have been given access to pain management education.  Patients engaged in the program have developed a specific mindfulness about their pain treatment and have reported that they require less visits to their medical providers and have required much less pain medication.

HMS Trauma Center.  Through grant funding, Dr. Bowen has been able to lead the development of the HMS Trauma Center.   This center provides our community with two highly specialized therapies as well as diagnostics and evaluations.  Of note is that diagnosis is frequently missed or often over-diagnosis can occur.  The Center evaluates and corrects on both ends of that spectrum, allowing for effective recovery to begin. The two therapies are:  Dialectical Behavior Therapy (“DBT”) and Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (“EMDR”) Level One treatment.  Both therapies, described below, have provided amazing recovery processes for members of our community that would not have been available otherwise.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a system of therapy developed to treat persons with borderline personality disorder, but has been demonstrated to be generally effective in treating patients who present with varied symptoms of behaviors associated with mood disorders, self-injury, sexual abuse survivors and chemical dependency.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of psychotherapy that was developed to resolve symptoms resulting from disturbing and unresolved life experiences. It uses a structured approach to address past, present, and future aspects of disturbing memories. The approach was developed to resolve the development of trauma-related disorders resulting from exposure to a traumatic or distressing event, such as rape or military combat i.e. post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). EMDR therapy has helped many of Dr. Bowen’s patients suffering from disorders stemming from distressing life experiences,

Student Training.  Dr. Bowen is an educator.  As mentioned above, he was on the faculty of Central Washington University.  He continues his love of learning and educating as adjunct faculty member at Western New Mexico University in Silver City.  He also precepts Masters in Counseling students in his office environment on a regular basis.  Dr. Bowen also very humbly reports that he still mentors previous students from Central Washington University.  Dr. Bowen recognizes the need to contribute to the quality of our future providers. 

Dr. Bowen was very instrumental in the development of another community program, Grant County System of Care (SOC).  This program is designed to build around strengths in families as well as needs and brings together non-therapeutic as well as therapeutic community resources to the family.  He served on the Development Committee in molding the model, with specific Grant County requirements in mind.  This program continues to evolve and enrich the lives of Grant County families. SOC represents a great community collaboration that Dr. Bowen believes in and is dedicated to.