Claire Pinkston

Claire Pinkston MS, MFT has extensive experience in the counseling field as well as in teaching, training, and mentoring people. Her work in SUD treatment focused primarily on people in the criminal justice system, which is traumatizing all on its own. Additionally, women whose addictions are serious enough to result in arrest and incarceration have, almost invariably, suffered sexual and other trauma either leading to their drug use or resulting from it. Her work in community mental health focused on mostly indigent people suffering from under- and unemployment, financial insecurity, housing insecurity and homelessness, family violence, and a host of specific traumas resulting from living in unsafety with unwell people. Her work in private practice has provided an opportunity to work with people who have experienced the global trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has catapulted what might have been merely scary events into true traumas due to the shaping of the core belief that all people are life-threatening.

Teaching, training, and mentoring have been core components of almost every job she has had. In her first job out of college as a Health Educator for Planned Parenthood (1991-1993), she developed curriculum and trained college-aged interns to present programs on sex, sexuality and responsible decision-making. As an educator, she received considerable training and experience developing lesson plans and teaching. Her work as a community organizer included creating subject and institution-specific workshops and presentations to develop people and their capacity to advocate on their own behalf and speak truth to power. Her work as a consultant was primarily focused on developing educational programs for non-profit organizations. Finally, her work in the counseling/therapy field has included ongoing psychoeducation with clients as well as training and mentoring other counselors/therapists.