Clinical Mental Health Counseling: Holistic Studies Specialization

Sue’s teaching, writing, and research interests are in developmental and relational psychology, including adult development, cultural psychology, gender issues and women’s psychology, identity and relational development, LGBTQ+ career and identity development, and career counseling and vocational development.

Research interests include feminist, relational psychology, identity development, career development and life/career transitions, specifically transgender and nonbinary adults’ career decision-making, and qualitative, constructivist and narrative research.

Rakhshanda’s scholarship and pedagogy is informed by a transnational and interdisciplinary perspective with a focus on the impact of structural and systemic violence. Her philosophical frameworks are embedded in decolonial, liberatory, and the emancipatory consciousness and the potential of grassroots and community-engaged movements. She is invested in solidarity organizing aimed at dismantling oppressive sociopolitical structural determinants of harm to individual and communal wellbeing and radical reimagining of alternatives to neoliberal and depoliticized theoretical models and wellness industry.  

Examples of her most recent scholarship include understanding issues facing disenfranchised migrant communities and learning about solidarity from the perspectives of impacted community members, activist, and organizers, exploring structural violence and its impact on “undocumented” Latinos (as) immigrants, Muslims (immigrants and non-immigrants), and LGBTQIA+ persons who have experienced incarceration, and identifying pre and post migration factors impacting the wellbeing of South Asian immigrant women.  Another area of interest and a developing project is exploring the trajectory of individuals involved in grassroot movements and community organizing in solidarity and resistance to systemic and structural violence to further understand consciousness raising and change occurs at an individual level.  

Rakhshanda is a licensed psychologist and a clinical neuropsychologist. Her work as a Harvard Medical School clinical instructor included assessment and clinical care for patients with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds needing linguistic and culture specific assessment and care.

Donna Marie San Antonio has worked as a community organizer, teacher in grades 7-12, school counselor, outdoor educator-counselor, nonprofit administrator, and university instructor. She came to Lesley University in 2011 after teaching for 8 years in the Risk and Prevention Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For 26 years, she directed the Appalachian Mountain Teen Project, an activity-based counseling program that she founded in 1984 to serve low-income and struggling youth in central and northern New Hampshire. 

Dr. San Antonio’s research and practice focus on understanding and supporting social, emotional, and physical wellness during adolescence and emerging adulthood. She has published on topics including developmental transitions for rural adolescents and emerging adults; the influence of social class and trauma in life course design and aspiration; experiential education/adventure-based counseling; school-based and workplace mentoring; school climate and social-emotional development; cross-role and cross-institutional collaboration; and community and school-based participatory action research for social change. Her current research projects include an exploration into the lifelong impact of therapeutic adventure activities during adolescence, and an auto-ethnography on how schools and communities in low-income rural areas support the social integration and well-being of migrant youth and families.  

Dr. San Antonio collaborates with international practitioners and researchers on urgent issues in school and community counseling. She frequently consults with school and community programs seeking to address cultural and economic barriers to success. She serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Experiential Education and is a Founding Member of the International Society of Policy, Research and Evaluation in School Counseling. She coordinates Lesley University’s affiliation with the UNESCO-UNITWIN Project on Lifelong Career. 

About her on-going community work, Dr. San Antonio says, "I believe in involving youth as active participants in addressing issues that threaten their well-being, such as poverty, racism, trauma, sexism, and homophobia.” As a classroom instructor and community activist, Dr. San Antonio works to create contexts that offer a high level of active critical reflection and dialogue. She enjoys hiking, biking, canoeing, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing.   

Joe Mageary, PhD, LMHC, CCMHC (he/him) is an Associate Professor in Lesley University’s Department of Counseling and Psychology. As a member of the core faculty, Dr. Mageary has also served as the Director of Field Training for Counseling and Psychology. He is a Massachusetts Licensed School Adjustment Counselor and Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), as well as a nationally certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor (CCMHC) and a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Connecticut. He has used his LMHC in inpatient, outpatient, and community-based clinical roles and has extensive experience as a clinical supervisor, having worked as the Director of Emergency Services and Jail Diversion for an eighteen-town catchment area as well as serving as a Clinical Director in therapeutic high school settings for nearly a decade prior to joining Lesley’s faculty.

Throughout his career, Dr Mageary’s clinical work has been rooted in trauma-informed efforts to decrease stigma and suffering associated with mental illness through providing creative, community-based, collaborative, and recovery-oriented services. His clinical approach is influenced by tenets of Narrative Therapy, trauma-informed approaches, critical psychology, and brief therapies as well as by transdisciplinary thinkers such as Gregory Bateson and Edgar Morin. He holds a certificate from the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma’s Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery program and is working interdisciplinarily on multiple projects related to supporting people who have been displaced and/or otherwise impacted by war, natural disaster, and other systemic stresses. Specifically, Dr. Mageary has worked with Voces Arts and Healing, a group of expressive therapists, clinicians and advocates supporting asylum seekers and their allies in the Juarez, Mexico/El Paso, Texas metropolitan area. He is also actively partnered with the Lesley University Institute for Trauma Sensitivity (LIFTS) in weekly consultation and support for teachers and child psychologists in the Kirovohradska region of Ukraine.

Dr. Mageary is interested in exploring creative and body-oriented approaches to healing. He led a team that developed the Visual Reflection Team model: an arts-based version of the Reflecting Team technique used in Family Systems- and Narrative therapies.

In addition to having his LMHC, Dr. Joe Mageary is a:

• Nationally Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor (CCMHC)
• Licensed School Adjustment Counselor and Special Education Administrator in the state of Massachusetts
• Level one- and two-trained Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) clinician
• Member of the American Counseling Association (Massachusetts and Rhode Island Association for Counselor Education and Supervision Division) and the Massachusetts Mental Health Counselors Association

Liz Barragato, MA, LMHC, has been an adjunct faculty member at Lesley University since 2014 and is thrilled to be a member of the core faculty starting in the 2021-2022 academic year. Liz has a private counseling and consultation practice in Cambridge, MA, and Liz is also a managing co-owner of Crooked Tree Counseling, LLC, in Cambridge.

Being a masters-level instructor, instead of having areas of scholarship, Liz had areas of clinical interest. Liz is interested in holistic theories and counseling methods, with a special interest in the intersection of Eastern wisdom practices, mental health, and wellness.

Liz brings this interest to the coordination of the Holistic Studies Specialization in the Counseling and Psychology Department. Liz is also deeply influenced by existential and relational psychoanalytic counseling approaches. Through all of these theoretical lenses, Liz see critical theory and issues of social justice permeating the work of counseling and teaching.