Dr. Chris Phillips
Clinical & Performance Psychologist | Life Transition Architect
Dr. Chris Phillips is a clinical and performance psychologist with more than two decades of experience of experience working with U.S. Special Operations Forces and advising senior national security leaders in high-consequence environments.
He founded the Valor Institute to serve those who have carried extraordinary responsibility: Special Operations Forces, special mission unit operators, senior leaders, intelligence professionals, and the spouses who carried the weight of that service alongside them.
What Drives Chris
The mindset, tools, and teamwork that sustain elite performance and strong marriages in operational environments do not automatically transfer once the uniform comes off.
Chris has seen too many exceptional operators, senior leaders, and the marriages that supported them quietly struggle in transition. Not from lack of discipline or resilience, but from lack of deliberate integration across the full architecture of life.
He founded the Valor Institute to address that gap.
His work helps these individuals redirect the same proven resilience, discipline, and partnership into a post-uniform life defined by clarity, alignment, and enduring purpose
Key Background
- Clinical Psychologist for Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR) in Stuttgart, Germany: Supported psychological health, resilience, and operational performance of U.S. Special Operations personnel and their families while also serving as SERE Psychologist. Contributed to multinational resilience programs and personnel recovery training with Ukrainian and UK military psychologists, while supporting SOF-related training efforts with select NATO partner nations.
- SERE Psychologist, actively credentialed with the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), qualified to support SERE education and training, personnel recovery reintegration, and psychological oversight in high-risk operational environments.
- Psychological Consultant to U.S. Space Command (selected earlier in his career than any other officer in USAF history).
- Former Director of Neuropsychological Services at Peterson Air Force Base; 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.
- Former Chief Psychologist within 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 their professional work, they have mentored families transitioning from homelessness and instability, continuing a lifetime of service that began in challenging global contexts including apartheid-era South Africa, rural Nigeria, post-Soviet Russia, and America’s inner cities.
If you are navigating a pivotal life transition and value depth, rigor, and discretion, the next step is a confidential conversation.
