Highest Degree: Ph.D.

 

Academic Discipline: Clinical Psychology

 

License: Licensed Clinical Psychologist

  

Specialties: Individual Insight-Oriented Therapy; Couples Therapy / Marriage Counseling; Conjoint Couples Therapy; Group Therapy; Children's Play Therapy; Parental Guidance and Education; Psychological Assessment

 

Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) member: Trained in "Parenting Coordination: Working with High Conflict Families." 

 

Dr. Glory Fox Dierker has been working with families in Northern Virginia since 1971. She began as a social worker and child development specialist for the Alexandria Department of Social Services. From 1974 until 1977, Dr. Dierker worked at the Virginia Department of Social Services as the Director of Staff Development for the 17 county departments of social services in Northern Virginia. Throughout the 1980s, Dr. Dierker developed and directed the Alexandria Community Y (now known as “The Campagna Center”), Center for Women and Families, a parent education and support program.

 

Dr. Dierker is the Director of The Family Center, which she founded in 1989. For 25 years, The Family Center has been supporting and enhancing the lives of individuals and families in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The Family Center is a large private practice that provides psychotherapy for adults, children, couples, and families. Dr. Dierker continues to practice clinical psychology, as well as supervise resident clinicians. Her practice provides marital and pre-marital couples counseling; family therapy; group therapy; play therapy for pre-teens; counseling for teenagers; psychological testing; and custody evaluations. It also provides educational testing; parent education; parenting coordination; and family & divorce mediation.

 

The Parenting Project, started by Dr. Dierker, focuses on parental guidance, education, and support. Dr. Dierker, and other Family Center staff members are certified by the Supreme Court of Virginia to teach the four-hour parent education seminar required of divorcing parents with minor children. Dr. Dierker is the author of Parenting Together, Living Apart, which is used to teach the course by the same name. The manual is based on the scientific principles of Attachment Research. The Family Center is dedicated to remaining current in terms of the latest in theory, research, and effective interventions related to parenting coordination, and all other areas of practice.

 

In conjunction with her work at The Family Center, Dr. Dierker has taught developmental psychology at Northern Virginia Community College, served as a member of The Falls Church/Fairfax Community Services Board; she continues to serve as needed as expert witness in custody and domestic violence cases in Fairfax County, as well as other counties in Virginia.