To
me, love, life and laughter are my motto; all within the
context of relationships. Teaching at Regent has allowed
opportunities to invest these values in the lives of students—this
is indeed my passion! These values were distilled in me at
an early age. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the second
born of six children, four boys and two girls, my parents
stressed relationship within the context of ambition as the
primary way to achieve passion. My quest to integrate
relationship and passion continued through high school, college
and graduate school. As a profession, I chose Counseling
with an emphasis in Biblical Counseling during my undergraduate
studies. During college, I applied the values of relationship
and passion serving as the first Youth Pastor for True Love
Missionary Baptist church in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
I continued training at the graduate level in Counseling
and Clinical Psychology and directed much of my energy and
passion towards research concerning serious mental health
and antisocial behaviors in adolescents; violent and chronic
juvenile offenders; sexually aggressive youth; youths presenting
psychiatric emergencies; co-occurring mental health and substance
abuse disorders of adolescents; maltreating families; screening
and assessment of co-occurring disorders, suicide awareness
and crisis response education, program design and evaluation
of juvenile justice involved youth, based on the best available
research and practice and the development of clinically effective
treatments and protocols. I have written extensively on mental
health needs of adolescents including residential care, screening
and assessment, ethnic minority youth, co-occurring mental
health and substance use, sexual aggression, and trauma.
I love my relationship with Regent University as the Psychology
and Counseling programs focus on mentoring students into “greatness”.
I serve as chairperson of several doctoral dissertation projects.
I teach clinical courses including Psychopathology, Advanced
Assessment Techniques, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy,
Community Counseling, Consultation Practices & Supervision
and Program Evaluation. Inspirations for my work come from
my life experiences and from the pain of those whom I serve. I
try to capture a moment from a life event and convert it
into an emotion that I later express in my work. Reliance
on God’s direction, research and the art of counseling
is involved in all my work. Clinical procedures with
youth and educational topics with my students are drawn from
various resources ranging from previous clinical experience
to current events.
I live in Virginia Beach, Virginia with my wife, Dr. Christina
Underwood, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, and our two
children, Braxton and Brittanie. To me, love, life
and laughter are my motto! |
