Dr. Chris Phillips
Clinical & Performance Psychologist | Life Transition Architect
Dr. Chris Phillips is a clinical and performance psychologist with over 20 years of experience optimizing resilience and human potential in high-stakes environments. He founded Valor Institute to serve those who have carried the heaviest loads: Special Operations Forces, special mission unit operators, senior national security leaders, intelligence professionals, and their spouses/home-front partners.
What Truly Drives Chris
The mindset, tools, and teamwork that kept operators and their marriages alive downrange can, and must, be deliberately redirected to build an even stronger life after the uniform. Dr. Phillips has observed too many exceptional Tier-1 performers, senior leaders, and their home-front partners quietly fracture in transition.
He founded Valor Institute to guide Special Operations Forces, special mission unit operators, senior national security leaders, intelligence professionals, and their home-front partners, into a post-uniform life of clarity, renewed purpose, and unbreakable alignment.
Key Background
- Clinical Psychologist, Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR) Headquarters – Stuttgart, Germany: Responsible for psychological health, resilience, and operational performance of U.S. Special Operations personnel; simultaneously served as a SERE Psychologist; helped build multinational resilience programs; provided direct clinical care to operators, civilians, and families.
- SERE Psychologist, actively credentialed with the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA): Qualified to support SERE education/training, personnel recovery reintegration, and psychological oversight in high-risk environments.
- Psychological Consultant to U.S. Space Command (selected earlier in career than any other officer in USAF history).
- Director of neuropsychological services at Peterson AFB; primary psychological advisor to NORAD, U.S. Northern Command, and 21st Space Wing commanders.
- Founder of DoD’s first Rocky Mountain regional Integrated Behavioral Health training program.
- Chief Psychologist in civilian practice (one of Colorado Springs’ leading family medicine practices); director of inpatient combat-trauma treatment program.
Beyond The Summit
Dr. Phillips and his wife Lisa live in Colorado Springs. Beyond his professional work, they have mentored families transitioning from homelessness, extending a lifetime of service that began in challenging global contexts (apartheid-era South Africa, rural Nigeria, post-Soviet Russia, and U.S. inner cities).
If you are navigating a pivotal shift and value depth, rigor, and discretion, reach out to begin the conversation.
