Diane Bigler, LCSW, LSCSW

Ethics, Trauma & CBT Clinical CE Trainer

Diane Bigler, MSW, LCSW, LSCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker, educator, consultant, clinical supervisor, and national continuing education trainer based in the Kansas City area. Her work brings together professional ethics, trauma-informed care, evidence-informed psychotherapy, clinical assessment, supervision, and workplace mental health education. She is known for translating complex clinical and ethical topics into practical frameworks that social workers, counselors, psychologists, case managers, healthcare professionals, and organizational leaders can apply in real-world settings.

Her training approach reflects an unusually broad professional background. Before entering social work, Diane worked in criminal investigation, including cases involving crimes against minors, child abuse, human trafficking, missing persons, sexual assault, and homicide. She later developed experience across psychiatric hospitals, outpatient services, home-based and community care, graduate social work education, clinical supervision, employee assistance, leadership coaching, and professional training. This combination allows her to address the clinical, ethical, systemic, and organizational dimensions of behavioral health practice.

Diane’s continuing education programs emphasize thoughtful professional judgment rather than the memorization of isolated rules. Whether she is teaching professional boundaries, dual relationships, trauma, grief, CBT, DBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, suicide-related concerns, or clinical assessment, she encourages participants to examine context, client welfare, power, documentation, consultation, culture, and the limits of their professional role.

Professional Background

Diane earned her Master of Social Work from the University of Kansas in 2006, completing clinical concentrations in Children and Families and Mental Health. Her official professional biography also documents earlier associate- and bachelor’s-level education in criminal justice and two field internships at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Before beginning her social work career, she served as a criminal investigator with the Robertson County District Attorney’s Office in Tennessee on a Crimes Against Minors task force.

Her social work career has included clinical practice in psychiatric hospitals, outpatient clinics, home-based programs, and community settings. She has worked as a therapist, mental health consultant, clinical supervisor, program coordinator, field instructor, and educator. These roles have exposed her to the practical realities of treating clients across systems in which risk, family dynamics, organizational policy, legal responsibilities, and limited resources may influence clinical decisions.

Diane also served for 10 years as an adjunct professor at the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare. Her teaching included Clinical Social Work Practice, Loss and Grief, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Family Therapy, Advanced Standing Practice, and Mental Health and Psychopathology. She additionally worked as a field liaison and community education trainer. Her professional biography lists the University of Kansas Adjunct Professor of the Year Award in 2017 and the Margo Award for Excellence in Field Instruction in 2020.

In clinical supervision, Diane has supported social workers pursuing independent clinical licensure and has trained clinicians in supervision, professional ethics, boundaries, assessment, and professional development. Her supervisory perspective emphasizes clear expectations, reflective practice, appropriate feedback, professional accountability, and the protection of client welfare.

Diane has also worked in corporate behavioral health as Performance Solutions Director at New Directions Behavioral Health. In that role, she developed and presented programs for employees, managers, and organizational leaders. Her training topics included emotional intelligence, supporting employees with personal concerns, difficult workplace interactions, team communication, facilitation, and executive leadership coaching.

Today, Diane provides continuing education, consultation, and professional training through Diane Bigler Training. Her services support mental health professionals, companies, supervisors, and managers through clinical education, organizational consultation, employee wellness training, and leadership development. Her documented training catalog includes professional ethics, CBT, DBT, ACT, grief and loss, trauma-informed care, motivational interviewing, suicide, healthcare practice, anxiety, depression, diagnosis, assessment, and treatment.

Areas of Expertise

Professional Ethics and Ethical Decision-Making. Diane helps clinicians move beyond simply quoting an ethics code and toward a structured process for addressing complicated situations. Her training covers informed consent, confidentiality, documentation, professional competence, consultation, client welfare, conflicts of interest, and tensions among clinical, legal, and organizational responsibilities. The NASW Code of Ethics provides an authoritative foundation for many of these responsibilities, while Diane’s teaching focuses on applying ethical principles to realistic practice scenarios.

Professional Boundaries and Dual Relationships. Boundary concerns may develop gradually through therapist self-disclosure, gifts, social media contact, overlapping community roles, after-hours communication, or competing professional relationships. Diane’s work helps clinicians distinguish between a clinically considered boundary crossing and a potentially harmful boundary violation. Clinical Events’ guide to professional boundaries for therapists and its detailed discussion of dual relationships in counseling offer useful companion resources for therapists evaluating power, exploitation risk, client vulnerability, consultation, and documentation.

Trauma-Informed Care. Diane’s background in criminal investigation, psychiatric settings, community care, and family-focused services informs her approach to trauma education. She teaches clinicians to consider how traumatic experiences may affect emotional regulation, trust, memory, attachment, behavior, identity, physiological responses, and engagement in treatment without assuming that every symptom has a trauma origin. Clinical Events’ overview of evidence-based trauma therapy provides additional context on assessment, stabilization, cognitive and behavioral approaches, relational treatment, and other trauma-responsive interventions.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Evidence-Informed Practice. Diane teaches CBT as a clinical framework connecting thoughts, emotions, behavior, physical responses, and environmental conditions. Her programs may address case formulation, behavioral activation, cognitive restructuring, exposure principles, coping skills, problem-solving, core beliefs, and treatment planning. The American Psychological Association’s overview of CBT offers an authoritative explanation of the model, while Clinical Events’ comparison of Somatic Experiencing and CBT helps clinicians consider how cognitive and body-oriented approaches may differ or complement one another.

DBT, ACT, and Motivational Interviewing. Diane’s training catalog includes Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and motivational interviewing. Her instruction focuses on using interventions within an appropriate clinical formulation rather than presenting individual techniques as universal solutions. Relevant themes include emotion regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness, psychological flexibility, values-based action, ambivalence, reflective listening, and strengthening a client’s own motivation for change.

Grief, Loss, and Family Systems. Diane’s graduate teaching and clinical training include grief, family therapy, children and families, and mental health practice. Her work recognizes that loss may involve death, illness, trauma, disrupted relationships, caregiving, identity changes, employment, or other major life transitions. A systems perspective helps clinicians understand how individual distress may be shaped by relationships, family roles, repeated patterns, and the wider social environment.

Clinical Supervision and Professional Development. Diane approaches supervision as both a developmental and ethical responsibility. Her work addresses feedback, evaluation, power, professional boundaries, documentation, cultural responsiveness, supervisee support, and client protection. She also helps experienced professionals think critically about consultation, leadership, training design, and the continuing development of competence after independent licensure.

Workplace Mental Health and Organizational Consultation. Diane’s employee-assistance and leadership background allows her to connect mental health knowledge with workplace realities. She provides education and consultation related to employee wellness, emotional intelligence, difficult interactions, supportive supervision, team functioning, and trauma-informed organizations. Her approach preserves an important distinction between supporting employee well-being and expecting managers to function as mental health clinicians.

Authored Publications

• Postpartum Depression Symptoms, Signs, Screening, and Treatment
• Health Anxiety Symptoms, Signs, and Treatment: Breaking the Cycle of Fear
• Technology Addiction Assessment & Treatment: Tools for Clinicians
• Social Media Addiction Therapy: Evidence-Based Clinical Strategies
• ACT for Depression: Practical ACT Interventions That Work
• Addiction and Family Systems: Understanding Roles and Recovery
• Self-Harm Treatment Plan: Goals, Interventions & Safety
• ACT for Anxiety Disorders: A Practical Guide for Clinicians
• Exploring the Real Connections Between Trauma, Addiction and Loss