Beth's Practice Focus Areas: Anxiety, Life Transitions and Adjustment, Trauma, Grief and Loss, Perfectionism and Overachievers, Healing from Narcissistic Abuse, Living with Cancer

 

I come to counseling with a strong commitment to working with others as they face and cope with the good and bad that life offers us. Sometimes, it's success that creates feelings of anxiety, and sometimes it's a life event that causes loss or opens a window into a past trauma. Other times, it's just the unfolding of life that creates a desire for change and growth and for finding new meaning, purpose, and understanding in our lives and ourselves. Counseling for me is a true vocation and a way of being in the world with others. 

 

I have turned to counseling after a 26-year career of university research, teaching, and tutoring. I was a tenured faculty member at Georgia State University and Kennesaw State University. I directed the writing studio at GSU, and the composition program at KSU. I loved teaching and enjoyed being an advisor and mentor to students. I came to realize that the one-on-one work I was doing was very rewarding, and that I wanted to spend more time in the role of listening and transformation. I appreciate how much both teaching and counseling are reciprocal, where each person learns and grows through interactions and conversations with each other. I also have life experiences healing from grief and loss, surviving toxic work environments, and medical trauma related to surviving cancer. These experiences have deeply shaped my choice to become a licensed professional counselor. 

 

I believe curiosity and kindness are key elements of counseling. Counseling promotes healing from the past and growing for the future. Additionally, the counseling process shows us how to live in the present and how to find balance and peace. My foundation for counseling practice includes psychodynamic theory (the belief that we are shaped by our early childhood and that our early relationships create patterns in our adult lives that may be helpful or problematic), feminist therapy (advocacy for clients, helping clients find their voice and tell their story, learning assertiveness and autonomy) and existential therapy (how to cope with uncertainty, to grow after trauma or grief, to face our fears, to come to terms with cancer or chronic illness, to make meaning in our lives). I respect and value the differences each client embodies, and each client's individual experiences and perspectives. 

 

Outside of counseling, I am an animal lover. For three years (during the pandemic) I fostered and trained 15 rescue dogs through Atlanta Adopt A Golden (AGA). I am also a volunteer with Reins of Hope, an equine therapy program for breast cancer patients. I enjoy yoga, being creative, and all things science fiction.

 

Beth is an advanced graduate student in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA (Class of 2025). She is under the supervision of Jacinta Wills, LPC, CGS, CAMSII.