Clinical Approach

 

My clinical specialty is treating trauma in Black people. It’s the thread that’s run through my entire 16-year career as a therapist—and it’s what I’ve been called to do.

 

In grad school, I was on the Child and Adolescent Health and Mental Health track at UNC Chapel Hill’s School of Social Work. During my practicum year in 2008, I trained in Wake County’s Sexual Abuse Treatment Program—the only outpatient unit in North Carolina that served both survivors and offenders of sexual abuse. It was here I began formal training in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TFCBT), working closely with some of the most seasoned trauma therapists in the field. The program was state-funded, which meant we served families whose care was provided by public healthcare systems—and as is often the case, nearly all of my clients were Black and Brown.

 

After grad school, I continued trauma work as a community-based therapist, providing intensive in-home crisis services to families whose needs exceeded what traditional outpatient therapy could offer. We were in the home three times a week for two-hour sessions, with 24/7/365 crisis response coverage. It was in this role that my understanding of trauma was stretched and sharpened. I began to see, more clearly than ever, how policies and systems that claim to support marginalized families often replicate the same cycles of trauma they’re supposed to interrupt. And I knew—this work had to be different. It had to center us.

 

My passion for understanding trauma became a calling to help us understand trauma—specifically, the nuanced, layered ways Black people are impacted by it, and how we heal. I deepened my clinical foundation with ongoing training in TFCBT, Motivational Interviewing, Family Strategic and Structural Therapy, and somatic interventions during those early years.

 

In 2014, I opened my private practice—something I had envisioned long before entering the field. I’d watched both my parents move from corporate work to entrepreneurship, and I knew early on I didn’t want to work under anyone’s system forever. Within a year, my solo practice grew into a group practice. Today, that practice has evolved into The Reese Collective—a virtual collective of healing resources for Black people.

 

This new iteration of TRC reflects a broader vision: to shift the culture of mental health in our communities by offering not only therapy, but also consultation, resources, and space for healing that centers safety, liberation, and culturally-rooted care.

 

In my clinical work, I now integrate years of trauma training with EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), somatic interventions, and insights from neurotheology—an emerging field that explores how faith and spirituality impact the brain and nervous system.

 

I’m also a Certified Enneagram Coach and bring the wisdom of the Enneagram into sessions through the specific lens of Black identity and lived experience. Because let’s be real—the Enneagram space is still overwhelmingly white. But we’re working on that.