Chris Celio, PsyD is a licensed psychologist in California. He has been a proud beneficiary from and supporter of You Just Have to Laugh since 2009. Dr. Celio, who started working in the mental health field in 2001 and originally trained to be a Child Psychologist, found his calling when he started serving adults diagnosed with severe mental illness as a Doctoral Intern in 2007. While this shifted his focus, he brought with him an emphasis on the family and other systems that the consumer is a part of and a creative spirit that believes that healing and recovery can come through many surprising and outside-of-the-box pathways, beliefs, and persons.

Dr. Celio  is currently working on launching housing services to prevent homelessness and the creation of a healing housing village of tiny homes for people diagnosed with severe mental illness. Chris is proud to be part of the coalition of agencies that helped start the annual Hope Cup Softball Tournament and Annual Bowling Tournament, where consumers, family members, and providers involved at eight agencies compete together to restore hope, reduce stigma, and show that we're all in this together.

Chris was proud to be awarded the Hope Award by the SPIRIT Classes of 2017 and 2018, the Community Partnership Award by the Putnam Clubhouse in 2018, and the Committed Clinician Award by NAMI Contra Costa in 2019. He was honored to be chosen by Contra Costa Behavioral Health to moderate their first "Bust Stigma" event at Brenden Theatre for Recovery Month 2019, by Putnam Clubhouse to moderate their Reimagine Mental Health Care Conference in 2020 and 2021, and by TogetherWell to speak as a panelist during their "The Power of Support and Advocacy in Peer Mental Health" in 2021. He would like to remind everyone that "Hope has been proven to be contagious, so pass it on!"