Ramblings Alumni Spotlight
Debra Castaldo '78
2025 Distinguished Alumni Award Honoree
Dr. Deb Castaldo has traveled a diverse career path during her 47-year career in social work. Since graduating from West Chester State College with a BSW, she has worked with pre-school children with special needs, as a child protective services caseworker, and in foster care and adoption; later, as a child, couples, and family therapist; clinical director; director of pediatric medical social work; professor; author; organizational development trainer and consultant; TV expert guest; and radio host.
After completing an MSSW degree at Columbia University, she entered clinical social work and family and couples therapy, studying with The Brief Family Therapy Center, Ackerman Institute for the Family, Relational Life Institute, and The Milton H. Erickson Foundation. She has been sharing her knowledge for more than 25 years at Rutgers University, Barry University, and other institutions.
During her PhD studies in Clinical Social Work at NYU — and due to her own experience with early marriage, infertility, childlessness, and midlife divorce — she completed the seminal study on women divorced at midlife without children, which became her first book, Divorced, without Children; she has also authored Gifts of Love, Relationship Reboot, and The Return to Love Playbook.
The media continues to call upon Dr. Castaldo as a guest expert. She has appeared on ABC News, NBC, FOX, and CNN, and is a regular contributor on the Living Abundantly Show with Sarah Vie on WLNY55/CBS New York. She has been featured in Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, Woman’s Day, Reader’s Digest, and The New York Post; online on Newsweek, HuffPost, Epoch Times, Women’s Health, and Hims; and as a celebrity couples expert on Popsugar and Theygossip.
Currently, Dr. Castaldo hosts Love Notes with Dr. Deb on 95.3 FM WCHE radio in West Chester; she continues regular appearances on various TV programs, writing for publications, and maintains a private practice in couples and family therapy in the NYC and West Chester areas.