Dr. Makiko Watanabe (she/her) is a licensed clinical psychologist in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is the founding director of the Child and Adolescent Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Program at MGH.

Dr. Watanabe graduated with a BA from the University of Chicago. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from George Washington University and then completed an APA-accredited psychology internship at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She also completed an APA-accredited postdoctoral fellowship at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where she provided full-model DBT for adolescents with suicidal and self-harm behaviors.

As a staff psychologist at MGH, Dr. Watanabe is committed to providing culturally responsive, trauma-informed, evidence-based interventions for children, youth and families. She has developed and leads family therapy for children with emerging behavioral and emotional difficulties. Additionally, she provides behavioral health consultations and brief interventions for children and families coping with a range of medical, emotional, behavioral, and/or academic challenges in Pediatrics and Adolescement Medicine primary care clinics, through the Integrated Primary Care (IPC) program. Dr. Watanabe collaborates on clinical implementation grants evaluating the implementation of trauma-informed interventions in primary care and tertiary care settings.