Inside Look: Campus Mental Wellness Services

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In this episode you’ll hear about: mental wellness services on campus, asking for help, embracing who you are, and why you need support to succeed at your life.

Our guest is: Elisabeth Gonella, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has worked in the mental health and spiritual counseling fields for over 25 years. The early years of her career were spent working primarily with adolescents in various institutional settings where she facilitated therapeutic wilderness programs, Gestalt based group therapy, expressive arts, and daily activities as a vehicle for self-reflection. She has received training in working with substance abuse and dually diagnosed clients in both in-patient and out-patient settings. Currently, Elisabeth is seeing clients in private practice and in a College Counseling and Psychological Services Department. Elisabeth develops curriculum for The Therapist Development Center assisting hundreds of interns to pass the MFT exams (both California and National). Since 2012, Elisabeth has served as an adjunct faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Elisabeth is a clinical member of both the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. She is also a graduate of Community Choir Leadership Training and facilitates Community Singing in Santa Barbara, California to promote well-being through music.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode might be interested in:

• Elisabeth’s website
• Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore
• The Gift of Therapy by Irvin Yalom, MD
• The documentary film Finding Joe
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Flow, the Ted Talk: 
• The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work by Joseph Campbell
• Acacia Counseling and Wellness