Vanessa Layne, MEd, LMHC
About
The particular sort of mental health professional I am is a mental health counselor. I have been licensed for independent practice (Massachusetts LMHC 7956) since 2012.
Mental health counselors are specialists in "talk therapy". That's all we do: apply the crafts of counseling and psychotherapy to improve our clients' mental health. As a mental health counselor, I do not prescribe medications, though I support the use of pharmacological interventions in conjunction with psychotherapy; nor do I perform assessments for legal or academic purposes.
My foundational approach to psychotherapy is Rogerian, also called Client-Centered Therapy (CCT). Additionally I draw from many other schools and modalities.
I did my graduate study at Cambridge College. I have been practicing professionally for 15 years; before then I practiced as an intern as part of my academic preparation for profession.
I have specialized in being a generalist: I have worked with clients spanning the full range of mental health severity a clinician might see in an out-patient setting, from basically healthy people dealing with interpersonal difficulties, to patients with severe mental illnesses who are or have been frequently hospitalized. That includes clients with psychotic disorders, personality disorders, and substance abuse disorders, among others. I am a GSR-affirming clinician, having both experience and training in serving LGBT clients and clients of many other gender, sexuality, and relationship minorities.
I'm also a programmer. Through my twenties and into my thirties – before I became a therapist – I earned a living as a coder. Originally, I did a lot of office automation for the desktop, but in 1999 the inevitable happened and I got pulled into the swirling vortex of web development by the inrushing tide of dot.com money. Eventually I fetched up at a science and math education R&D non-profit where I became an internal consultant on implementing web technologies and a technical lead specializing in content management systems.