Christina is a born and raised Tennessean, hailing from a small town in upper Northeast TN. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Christina received a Master’s of Science in Social Work from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2013. She just finished her Doctorate of Social Work (DSW) in 2021 and defended her Capstone paper entitled, “A lot of them in this area just don’t get it:” Bisexual Tennesseans Experiences of Psychotherapy.
Christina has been working in community mental health since 2011. She became a Social Worker in 2008 with her first job as a sexual assault survivor’s advocate in Jonesborough, TN. She is trained in somatic and attachment focused Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).
Christina believes that most of us walk around disconnected from our bodies because of systems of oppression benefiting from our disconnection from ourselves and each other. She believes that feeling, movement, human relationships, art, talking, and trusting ourselves can positively change our world. She believes the therapeutic relationship is a foundation of healing that occurs in therapy spaces. She is cautiously optimistic and open about who she is in the world. She acknowledges her privileges of being a cis-woman, a human born white in a land colonized by European settlers. And honors the parts of her that are still often marginalized: being raised in a lower SES household in rural Appalachia, being queer, having traversed the medical industrial complex as a cancer survivor, and an everyday healing person who has lived trauma. She loves her son, spouse, dog, two cats, community theatre, all therapy memes, board games, yoga, iced coffee, journaling, and good books. She believes in empathy for all situations, equity for all people, and working together to unburden ourselves and each other from the installed beliefs of systems that are designed to restrain, constrain, and oppress us.
