Being a part of NAMI's scientific advisory board honors my desire to be a fountain in my career- spreading as much knowledge, advocacy and hope for people living with severe and persistent mental illness as possible. Growing up in a rural area with a mother who suffered from bipolar illness, there were no resources for us as a family. It is the dream of a lifetime to not only be able to provide high quality, recovery oriented psychiatric services in the same county that I grew up in, but also to have a greater impact across the country.
Carolyn Rekerdres, MD is a native Texan and dedicated community psychiatrist with experience in providing recovery oriented psychiatric treatment to individuals with severe and persistent mental illness. She graduated cum laude with a degree in philosophy from the University of Dallas. She went on to earn her Doctor of Medicine degree from UTMB in Galveston, Texas, and completed her psychiatric residency at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas.
Dr. Rekerdres has clinical experience in emergency psychiatry, inpatient psychiatry, rural psychiatry, homeless psychiatry, medication-assisted treatments, telepsychiatry, first-episode psychosis, family and couples therapy, IDD populations, and assertive community treatment. She focuses clinically on psychotic illnesses and comorbid substance use disorders. She also has psychiatric administrative experience as the former Medical Director of Child and Family Guidance Center in Dallas and the former Chair of the Psychiatric Leadership Advisory Group for the North Texas Behavioral Health Authority. She is currently the associate medical director of Pecan Valley Center in Texas and has served as a member of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing’s Medical Director Institute since 2017. She is also an adjunct professor for the rural psychiatry track at UT Southwestern.
NAMI HelpLine is available M-F, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. ET. Call 800-950-6264,
text “NAMI” to 62640, or email. In a crisis, call or text 988 (24/7).
