Dr. Aaron Smith

• Instructor of Clinical Mental Health Counseling

I completed my PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision in 2017 and have spent the last decade as a tenured Associate Professor of Counseling, most recently serving as Director of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at Western Washington University. I have been teaching ethics at the graduate level for 12 years, so this course is one I know well and care about deeply. I am also currently serving as Associate Editor of the Journal of Humanistic Counseling, and have been an active member of the Association for Humanistic Counseling since 2010. I have been one of the cohosts for The Thoughtful Counselor Podcast - one of the most well-listened clinical podcasts in the country - since 2017, getting to interview some of the most famous people in our field (Judith Lewis Herman, Daniel Siegel, Sebastian Junger, Lee Mun Wah, among others). Prior to starting my career in counseling, I served 8 years in the United States Marine Corps as an infantry Marine attached to a special forces reconnaissance unit.

Clinically, I have 14 years of experience as a licensed mental health counselor, and I hold full licensure in Washington, Colorado, and New Mexico. My advanced training includes Exposure and Response Prevention for OCD, Inference-Based CBT for OCD, Cognitive Processing Therapy with Prolonged Exposure, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, and Existential Therapy. I have been supervising practicum students and pre-licensed counselors for 11 years, and I have taught master's and doctoral students as a counselor educator for 12. I say all of this not to impress you, but so you know that what I bring into this course is not just academic. I spent time as the director of the Center for Cross Cultural Research (CCCR) which runs the prestigious Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, and I have directed two separate clinical research labs (the Warrior Wellness Lab from 2017-2020, and the Health Empowerment and Adjustment Lab [HEAL] from 2020-2026.). I also served as the CACREP Liaison for my prior university, writing a 300+ page program self-study that earned our CMHC and SC programs an 8 year accreditation.