COUNSELING CENTER STAFF

• Magi McKinnies, Director
• Cynthia Jirak, Associate Director
• Mark Redmond, University Counselor
• Sharon Harrington, University Counselor/Coordinator of Alcohol and Drug Education
• Anney Gillotte, Administrative Assistant
  
• Dana Benton, Intern
  
• Doug DiMartile, Intern
  
• Laurie Moskowitz-Corrois, Intern
  
• Arlene Swan, Intern
  
• Lana Taradash, Intern
  

MAGI MCKINNIES, Director, has an M.A. from the Counseling Psychology program and a B.S. from the Adult Baccalaureate program at Lesley University. Using an eclectic, creative approach that includes existential, feminist, relational, and body-oriented psychotherapies, she is interested in how culture and spirituality affect the ways we make meaning in our lives. She has experience with trauma survivors, women entering or re-entering school or work, parenting concerns, sexuality, relationship issues, and holistic health approaches. She has trained extensively in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and sand tray. Her interests also include creativity as a vehicle for self-expression and our relationship to the natural world. Magi has worked at the Center since 1986.

CYNTHIA JIRAK, Associate Director, has an M.S.W. from Boston University School of Social Work and a B.S. in Special Education from the State University College of New York at Buffalo. She is very interested in how we create healing, fulfillment, and meaning within ourselves and in our relationships. Through the use of various modalities that address creativity and spirituality, she enjoys working with people as they deepen their sense of self. She has experience working with trauma-related difficulties, self-esteem issues, exploring the effects of family history, coping with loss and change, the use of dream exploration, and cross-cultural counseling. She has trained in EMDR and Internal Family Systems, an approach to therapy that fosters access to the self through working with the mind as an inner family. Cynthia joined the Counseling Center in 1987.

SHARON HARRINGTON, University Counselor, has an M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and a B.S. in Human Services from Lesley University. As a therapist, she honors the unique constellation of strengths and concerns her clients bring, and works to conceptualize treatment in a holistic framework. She utilizes multiple guiding philosophies and theoretical orientations including: relationally-focused, existential, family systems, object relations, and cognitive behavioral. Sharon has a particular interest in alcohol and substance abuse counseling, and works to help her clients struggling with addictions to understand the psychological "purpose," of the addictive behaviors, and to develop strategies to reduce the destructiveness of such tendencies. In addition to working at Lesley University, she works for the Town of Wayland with students in the high school and their families.

MARK REDMOND, University Counselor, has an M.A. in Counseling Psychology from LesleyUniversity and a B.A. in Religious Studies from Oberlin College. He is influenced by existential, relational, and narrative approaches in his work, and appreciates the creativity that is inherent in the work of making meaning in life. Mark has prior clinical experience working with adults, adolescents and children in an outpatient mental health clinic and in a family homeless shelter. In addition to his position at Lesley, Mark is currently part of the bereavement program staff at The Children's Room Center for Grieving Children and Teenagers in Arlington, MA.