Dr. Mike Potoczniak – Veterans Mental Health and Substance Abuse: What We’re Getting Right and What We’re Getting Wrong

Dr. Mike Potoczniak is a licensed psychologist and is the Chief of Mental Health at the Loma Linda VA. He was previously the mental health director for the Santa Rosa community-based outpatient clinic in San Francisco VA.

Mike previously served as team lead for addiction recovery treatment services at Martinez Outpatient Clinic in Martinez, California; the mental health director for the Santa Rosa community-based outpatient clinic in San Francisco VA; and as the program director for the addiction, consultation, and treatment program at the Palo Alto VA. Potoczniak served in the Army Reserve and has been deployed twice, most recently as the behavioral health theater consultant located in Qatar, Afghanistan, and Kuwait, providing administrative oversight and quality assurance activities for behavioral health operations in the Middle East.

Dr. Potoczniak earned undergraduate and master’s degrees at Manhattan College in New York City, NY; and a PhD in counseling psychology at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL. He completed his predoctoral residency at the University of California, Irvine and subsequently worked at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of California, Berkeley prior to serving in the Army and VA.