Due to her interest in community and social needs, Josie initially worked for a community mental health center in rural Vermont. She was part of a pilot project to help families maintain custody of their children by providing intensive psychotherapy and social services support. This highly successful program has grown and is now utilized nationally in other community mental health centers. For four years, she was a member of a reflecting team that provided consultation and supervision for clinicians, clients, and agencies. The team developed innovative ways to utilize feminist and narrative approaches to assist clients and their therapists when facing impasses.

As Director of Counseling Services for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, she developed a short-term psychotherapy model to work with couples and women facing unplanned pregnancies. During her tenure, she supervised clinicians and provided a training program for post-graduate internships. She trained medical staff on mental health related issues and on developing counseling skills at Planned Parenthood, medical clinics, and also at The University of Vermont’s Medical School. As a Consultant for a Women’s Health Center, she provided supervision to medical staff on their clients’ mental health issues.

In private practice, she has provided both short and longer-term psychotherapy with children, adolescents, individuals, couples, and families particularly on issues of complex trauma, grief and loss, major life transitions, relationships and attachment, intimacy, depression and anxiety. She assisted clients from Vermont’s statewide AIDS organizations by providing mental health services to clients. She also co-founded and became the first executive director of OUTRIGHT VERMONT, a statewide agency for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth. In addition to managing the statewide organization, she facilitated trainings, supervised staff, provided crisis counseling, and facilitated weekly support groups.

She is certified in Trauma and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and has advanced trainings in body-oriented psychotherapy and attachment. She has advanced training in Internal Family System Therapy, multi-phased trauma treatment, attachment based therapy, narrative therapy, brief-focused therapy, family and couples treatment. She taught a basic counseling skills course for Goddard College’s Graduate Counseling program in Vermont. She has facilitated multiple trainings on social issues, trauma, mental health, sexuality, and counseling skills development. She has been a consultant for Employee Assistance Programs and has provided Critical Incident Stress Management Services in the Washington, D.C. area and in Oregon.

She currently has a varied practice working with adults, couples, families, and groups. She is an Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists Approved Supervisor for clinicians seeking licensure and provides consultations for licensed clinicians, both general and for EMDR and IFS informed EMDR. As a volunteer for the Trauma Recovery Network/Humanitarian Assistance Program, she provides immediate mental health care for victims of man-made and environmental disasters/events. She has also been a member of an international training team, teaching EMDR basic training to mental health professionals in Uganda. She volunteers with Crisis Intervention Team trainings teaching law enforcement how best to respond to people with mental disorders. She provides trainings on a number of mental health issues and treatment.