Melinda is a retired licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) with a PhD in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Although she has lived in many places in the US as well as in Europe and Japan, she was living and working on the Mississippi Gulf Coast when Hurricane Katrina hit and devastated the entire coastal area. In the aftermath of Katrina, she worked with traumatized communities, individuals, and families as they all began to piece their lives back together. She was Mississippi's first Emotionally Focused Therapist trained and certified by the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy. She was also one of the few Mississippi therapists who incorporated a solution-oriented perspective as well as a depth psychological/ Jungian perspective into her clinical work with military and civilian couples, families, and individuals. In addition to clinical work, Melinda has held numerous community and organizational leadership positions. In post-Katrina Mississippi, she was the founding director of a coalition of visionary NPOs dedicated to helping storm victims re-imagine and rebuild their lives.

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Ultimately, Melinda's goal is to help others strengthen their ability to see, share, and shape possibility so that we can help each other navigate the rapidly changing realities of our complex world. At least to some extent, she has integrated this goal into every job and position she has held throughout her life. Now in retirement from clinical practice, Melinda is enjoying the opportunity to pursue this goal in a newly focused way. Steeped in the encouraging philosophies that ground Attachment Theory, Depth Psychology, Jungian Psychology, and Solution-Oriented work, and tempered by years of spiritual exploration and practice, her approach is imaginative, collaborative, and experiential.

 

Melinda lives in Kansas now where she delights in being near her older daughter once again and her daughter's partner, both of whom are authors. Still, she continues to try to convince her scientifically-minded younger daughter and husband to move their family back to the States. Their family includes Melinda's grandchildren, and England is just too far away.

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