Dr. Villanueva completed his undergraduate degree in psychology at Trinity University in 1991 and immediately entered graduate school at The University of Texas at Austin in the Counseling Psychology program of the Educational Psychology Department.  He bypassed the masters degree in pursuit of his doctorate, with an emphasis on child and adolescent development.

Also during this time, Dr. Villanueva was privileged to encounter members of TERA, the Texas Experiential Ropes Association, and received training as a challenge course facilitator.  He worked locally in Austin with Team Craft, providing challenge-based training and development workshops to corporate clients.

During his graduate training, he was instrumental in developing a community-based practicum, bringing the psychological and counseling services of the Counseling Program into an inter-city, federally subsidized housing project.  During this formative stage in his professional development, he incorporated much of his earlier exposure from experientially-based programming into his work with children, families and the small community of the projects with the help of interested and devoted students from the Counseling Program.

After completing his educational requirements in Austin, he interned at Denver General Hospital (now Denver Health and Hospitals), again with a focus on adolescence, completing a six-month rotation on the inpatient adolescent psychiatric unit during his year internship.  While at Denver Health and Hospitals, he received exposure to and training with diverse clinical populations, including addictions and acute psychosis.

Upon completing internship, Dr. Villanueva became employed at the residential level as a counselor while he completed his dissertation.  His dissertation topic, Defensive Processing in Elementary Students, examined the association between sociometric status, depression and defensive processing, and finding strong correlations in his sample between depression and accuracy of perceived social standing among low sociometric status (rejected) elementary students.

After graduating with a Ph.D. in May of 2000, Dr. Villanueva worked in a day-treatment program while pursuing licensure in Colorado, and simultaneously provided cognitive behavioral group therapy to adult male sex offenders at a community mental health center.

In 2002, Dr. Villanueva returned to San Antonio and began working with Senior Connections where he provided psychotherapy for seniors in nursing homes.  This transition back to Texas was accompanied by his pursuit of licensure as a psychologist in Texas.

After a year of practice with Senior Connections, he was offered a position as Clinical Director of a chronic pain program in San Antonio, and developed that program with its full spectrum of low level and intensive psychotherapeutic interventions for chronic pain patients.

The chronic pain program was sold to another company, and Dr. Villanueva continued to develop other chronic pain programs in the city, while focusing more intensively on the development of his practice.

Dr. Villanueva holds licensure as a psychologist in Colorado and Texas.  He is a member of the Bexar County Psychological Association, the Texas Psychological Association, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, the Texas Pain Society, and he is on staff at the TexSAnHeart Hospital, and through the Baptist Health System.  He serves on the community advisory board for the Centers for Integrative Services at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.  He is also a member of the Optimist Club of San Antonio.

His training and background has allowed him the opportunity to provide services to a broad spectrum of clients, and while he enjoys providing therapy to persons across the full spectrum of life, he has found that many of his clients present with significant anxiety, depression, insomnia and pain.  He also offers training, workshops and services to the corporate client with a focus on healthy systems development, examining the multifaceted and multilayered dynamics that influence daily functioning, and promoting healthy change in these areas.

To contact Dr. Villanueva further, feel free to send an e-mail, or contact him by telephone at (210) 849-1244.