Helping counseling and counselor education grow.
I believe client-centered research can help counselors provide better counseling. Therefore, I work with a number of other researchers to examine client experiences, as well as dig deeper into understanding how counselors learn to be counselors. I love research and value collaboration, so I am always open to opportunities to connect about ongoing or potential studies.
Current Projects
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Multicultural Suicide Assessment
Currently in review
This collaborative conceptual article examines how counselors can intentionally integrate multiculturalism into suicide assessment.
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Neurodiversity in Counseling
Currently in planning
This phenomenological study will explore how neurodivergent clients experience counseling.
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Diagnostic Experiences
Currently in planning
This qualitative research will explore the processes counselors encounter throughout diagnosis.
Power, Interpersonal Trauma, and the Counseling Relationship: A Grounded Theory Analysis
Counselors must be equipped to support clients who have histories of interpersonal trauma (SAMHSA, 2014a). Interpersonal trauma often involves experiences of powerlessness (Finkelhor, 1986), and counselors can risk retraumatizing trauma survivors by misusing or neglecting power (Sweeney et al., 2019). Therefore, it is essential that counselors understand clients’ experiences of power within the counseling relationship. However, there is a paucity of research exploring the client’s perspective of power within the counseling relationship.
The purpose of this qualitative dissertation was to explore how adult women with histories of interpersonal trauma experience power within the counseling relationship.
Dissertation completed in Spring 2024 at Kent State University
The Power of Power
John Carroll University Spring Conference
The Power of Power: Preventing Retraumatization in Trauma-Informed Care
Individuals with histories of trauma risk experiencing retraumatization, or reliving traumatic events with adverse mental health effects. Trauma-informed care necessitates providers prevent retraumatization throughout treatment planning, intervention, and within the provider-client relationship. Increasing research suggests that power dynamics within the provider-client relationship, including in subtle relational dynamics, may increase risk of client retraumatization (SAMSHA, 2014; Sweeney et al., 2022).
This presentation was facilitated at the JCU Spring Conference, “Unified Care: Enhancing Behavioral Health Through Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration.” Thank you to attendees for collaboration.
Therapeutic Dungeons & Dragons
All Ohio Counselors Conference, October 2024
Tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs), such as Dungeons and Dragons, are imaginative storytelling games that empower players to work towards collaborative goals. Therapeutic TTRPGs provide many mental health benefits for children, adolescents, and adults (Henrich & Worthington, 2023), but can particularly strengthen clients’ self-awareness (Merrick et al., 2024), sense of empowerment (Gutierrez, 2017), and connectedness with others (Abbott et al., 2021). This presentation introduces TTRPGs, reviews promising research, and provides opportunities to experience and process TTRPG activities.
This presentation was shared at the All Ohio Counselors Conference in October 2024. Thank you to attendees!
Diversity Discussions in Diagnosis
This project (cowritten with Dr. Cassie Storlie) focused on how students in a graduate counseling program conceptualized diagnosis and diversity. Diagnosis has historically been weaponized against marginalized communities, including racist, sexist, and homophobic diagnoses spanning the lifetime of mental health care. The purpose of this project was to explore how future counselors understand diversity and diagnosis. Our hope is this project can better enable counselor supervisors and educators to prepare future counselors with culturally-responsive diagnostic practices.
Webinar presented to North Central Association for Counselor Education in fall 2021. Article published in the journal Counselor Education & Supervision in summer 2023.