Professional Development in Counseling and Psychology

Susan Gere, Professor and Division Director of the PhD program in Counseling and Psychology, is Core Faculty and a clinician and consultant in the community. Dr. Gere’s research and teaching interests are in integrative approaches to trauma treatment; understanding the impact of adverse life experience on adult learning; and mental health consultation in clinical, educational, organizational, and community settings. “I am interested in the many ways in which psychosocial knowledge can inform our understanding of educational processes across settings.”

Jared D. Kass, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Division of Counseling and Psychology, Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences.  He also serves as a Visiting Scholar with the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, MA.  Dr. Kass has taught at Lesley University since 1976.  He is a senior faculty member of the Holistic Studies specialization, where he trains mental health clinicians to practice trauma-informed, culturally-responsive, mind-body behavioral health.

Dr. Kass conducts a prevention-oriented research program that investigates the development of pro-social, health-promoting attitudes and behaviors in emerging adults.  Most recently, he has developed and tested an engaged learning curriculum for higher education.  This curriculum, Know Your Self, mentors undergraduate and entry-level graduate students as they build culturally-inclusive community and psychological resilience through person-centered psychospiritual maturation.  His book, A Person-Centered Approach to Psychospiritual Maturation, will be published by Palgrave MacMillan in Fall 2017.   

Dr. Kass has published many peer-reviewed research papers and book chapters related to his research program and teaching.  He is co-author of a book chapter, with Dr. Sidney Trantham, Perspectives from Clinical Neuroscience: Mindfulness and Therapeutic Use of the Arts. 

In addition, he is author of the following assessment instruments: 

--The Inventory of Positive Psychological Attitudes (IPPA) measures the resilient worldview, Confidence in Life and Self.  The IPPA is currently used in a college health textbook and many research projects in positive psychology and health psychology.   

--The Index of Core Spiritual Experience (INSPIRIT) measures personally-transformative experiences commonly reported by novice and advanced meditators.  These individuals include secular humanists and participants from diverse spiritual traditions.  The INSPIRIT has been reviewed favorably in many textbooks on the psychology of religion and spirituality.  It has been used internationally in research measuring the effects of contemplative practice on well-being, and has been translated into Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and Chinese. 

--The Spirituality and Resilience Assessment Packet (SRA) combines the IPPA and INSPIRIT.  This self-scoring assessment instrument helps individuals determine whether their contemplative experiences are contributing to a more resilient worldview (www.resilientworldview.org).    

Early in his professional career, Dr. Kass worked closely with Dr. Carl Rogers, as a staff member of the Person-Centered Approach Project.  This project was formative in Dr. Kass’ clinical practice and teaching, which focuses on building a therapeutic alliance through empathic attunement and reflective listening. 

Later, Dr. Kass worked with Dr. Herbert Benson at Beth Israel and New England Deaconess Hospitals, Harvard Medical School, conducting research on spirituality as a resource for resilience.

By integrating Rogers’ methods with multicultural and feminist theory, mind-body cognitive-behavioral approaches, psychodynamic attachment theory, experiential sensorimotor methods, and therapeutic use of the arts, Dr. Kass has helped develop an integrative approach to humanistic psychology that now constitutes a best-practices approach in clinical mental health counseling.      

Dr. Kass has served in many visiting positions.  He has been a Center Associate with the Higher Education Center for Alcohol, Drug, and Violence Prevention (USDOE).  He was coordinator of the Boston Clergy and Religious Leaders Group for Interfaith Dialogue.  He was a senior scholar in psychology on a panel sponsored by the University of New Mexico that wrote a book published by the American Psychological Association, Judeo-Christian Perspectives on Psychology: Human Nature, Motivation and Change.  In addition, he has been a fellow of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, and a visiting scholar with The Episcopal Divinity School (Cambridge, MA) and The Danielsen Institute at Boston University.   

Dr. Kass is an avid hiker, musician, and meditator.  He is also a co-founder of the team sport, Ultimate (1968).  Throughout his life, he and his family have been deeply committed to the integration of body, mind, and spirit as a resource for cultivating communities of health, social justice, and peace.  

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.

Dr. Mageary is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in the state of Massachusetts, an experienced educator, an active musician, and a proud Lesley alum. Prior to his appointment as Division Director he served as the Director of Field Training for Counseling and Psychology. Dr. Mageary has held a variety of positions in the field including Director of Emergency Services and Jail Diversion for an eighteen-town catchment area and Director of Clinical Services in a therapeutic high school setting. He has utilized his LMHC and Lesley education in inpatient, outpatient, and community-based clinical roles. Throughout his career, Dr. Mageary’s clinical work has been rooted in efforts to decrease stigma associated with chronic mental illness through providing 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.

Dr. Mageary holds a certificate from the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma’s Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery program and is currently working 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.

Dr. Mageary has published and presented on topics ranging from the transformative potential of social justice-oriented hardcore punk rock culture to the role that technology plays in working with teens. Dr. Mageary 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. Mageary is a nationally Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor (CCMHC), a licensed School Adjustment Counselor and Special Education Administrator in the state of Massachusetts, a level one- and two trained Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) clinician, and a member of both the American Counseling Association (Massachusetts and Rhode Island Association for Counselor Education and Supervision Division) and the Massachusetts Mental Health Counselors Association.

Dominique A. Malebranche is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Counseling and Psychology, Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences. Her intersectional experiences as a first-generation Haitian-American offers her a critical lens to center her teaching, practice, and scholarship in liberatory and trauma-informed approaches. Dr. Malebranche’s work has a strong commitment to dismantling relational and structural violence through the study of race, class, gender and the psychology of culture and oppression. She trained at the Trauma Center in Brookline, MA, specializing in the treatment of children, adolescents and adults with psychological traumatic stress and assessment of human trafficking, as well as at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, engaging in mind-body clinical research for PTSD. Her experiences have deepened her work to understand the impact of cultural and historical trauma and fosters her emerging scholarship in embodied healing justice. 

In addition to her university appointment, Dr. Malebranche provides multicultural/ cross-cultural and trauma-informed consultation services in clinical, organizational and community settings. She has extensive experience in program development and training, holding healing spaces and providing clinical, social justice- and contemplative-based services for individuals, communities and organizations in global and local settings. Self-identified activist-practitioner-scholar, she roots her endeavors in social change efforts to promote a paradigm shift toward critical reflection, transformative action and cultural healing through embodiment. She also values and encourages multiple ways of knowing through the practice and facilitation of mindfulness and yoga.

Donna Marie San Antonio has worked as a community organizer, middle school teacher, school counselor, outdoor educator, nonprofit administrator, and university instructor. She came to Lesley University in 2011 after teaching for 7 years in the Risk and Prevention Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For 25 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 frequently consults rural school and community programs that address social, emotional, and economic barriers to success for children and youth. Her work in the northernmost part of New Hampshire continues as the Inventing the Future Project – a project that strengthens the capacity of schools and communities to guide low-income young people toward higher education and good careers.

About her on-going community work, Dr. San Antonio says, "I enjoy working across diverse sectors of the community and 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, Dr. San Antonio values working to create a classroom community that offers a high level of active critical reflection and dialogue. She enjoys being outdoors, especially hiking, biking, canoeing, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing. 

Research interests include developmental transitions for adolescents and emerging adults; rural education; social class and education/career opportunity; experiential education; adventure therapy; school-based mentoring; school climate and social-emotional development; cross-role and cross-institutional collaboration; cross-cultural ethnographic research; and community and school-based participatory action research for social change.  

Dr. San Antonio 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 is the Coordinator of the UNESCO-UNITWIN Project on Lifelong Career for the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences.

Sidney M. Trantham, Associate Professor, received his Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of Florida (Gainesville).  His doctoral work focused on exploring the impact of early childhood sexual experiences of males and later adult psychological functioning.  He was a Harvard Clinical Fellow (1996 – 2000) at the Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he completed his clinical psychology internship and neuropsychological post-doctoral fellowships, as well as engaged in research identifying early cognitive markers of HIV-related dementia. In addition, his work at Fenway Health (1999 – 2006) in Boston, Massachusetts included working with adults to address a variety of issues related to sexual identity development.  In addition to his university appointment, Dr. Trantham maintains a private practice where he provides integrative psychological, neuropsychological, and gender assessment as well as psychotherapy with children, adolescents, adults, and families.  Areas of clinical interest and expertise include working with transgender and non-binary children and adolescents, sexual and racial identity development, and mood disorders.