I am a native of eastern Kentucky. I graduated from Centre College with a major in English literature and psychology and earned a doctoral degree in clinical psychology at the University of Kentucky. For post-graduate training I earned certification in Gestalt therapy at the Gestalt Institute of Kentucky and did training-therapy in Pesso/Boyden System Psychomotor over the course of 15 years.
My Master’s thesis was an experimental study of Carl Jung’s theory of complementarity between dreams and waking life. I worked as a counselor at the UK Counseling and Testing Center for four years and completed my dissertation with an experimental study of early group development.
After graduate school I returned to southeast Kentucky and was the first clinical psychologist to open a private practice in a nine or ten-county region. I soon found myself involved in virtually everything a mental health professional could do in those days. I served as an expert in 7 murder trials, consulted with school systems about troubled students and troubled teachers and conducted forensic examinations in social security disability cases, workers compensation litigation and personal injury law suits. I treated clients for panic disorder, major depression, manic depression, multiple personality, obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction, schizophrenia, ADHD and, almost before it was labelled a disorder, post-traumatic stress. I advocated for veterans as they sought support from the VA and specialized in treating disabled workers and trauma victims.
In 1983 a judge came up to me and said, “I have a funny feeling I should never make a runaway go back home. Why is that?” I answered, “because there’s no such thing as a runaway, your Honor. They are children who have been run off by someone who’s abusing them.” Out of that interaction I became founder/director of the Hazard/Perry County Juvenile Day Treatment Center, which was Kentucky’s first, true, family-oriented juvenile day treatment program. I later had the opportunity to present the theory and outcome of that program to the Florida Conference of Circuit Judges.
In addition to private practice I have taught courses at Centre College, served (for two years) as director of counseling at the Centre campus of the Governor’s Scholars Program and worked for the Navy. For 2 ½ years I served as Deployment Health Psychologist at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Virginia and for a year I was Mental Health Lead for the Seabees’ Embedded Mental Health Program in Gulfport, Mississippi. More recently I worked as a therapist and assessment specialist in a community mental health center. I am now in private practice with offices in Paducah and on an ad hoc basis in eastern and central Kentucky. I see clients individually, as couples and as families, and offer personal growth and dream workshops, as well as training workshops for executives, business managers, and first responders. When there are problems with health, transportation or distance, I am available for telehealth sessions.
Southfork Counseling 