Behavioral Health

April Wilson Smith, MPH, is a PhD student in Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Her research focuses on harm reduction approaches to people who use substances when they enter the healthcare system.

April's other interest in healthcare is interprofessional education and teamwork. Her work with the Jefferson Center for InterProfessional Education won the 2016 James B. Erdmann PhD award for Excellence in Interprofessional Education. She is currently building a large, multidisciplinary coalition to create an interprofessional education module for healthcare professionals in best practices for the care of people who use drugs when they present in the acute care setting.

April is a Certified SMART Recovery facilitator and founded the first SMART Recovery meeting in the Philadelphia city limits. She is also co-founder of the only Harm Reduction, Abstinence and Moderation Support meeting in Philadelphia.

April recently accepted a position as Harm Reduction Epidemiologist with Families for Sensible Drug Policy, which is a non-profit dedicated to helping families advocate for drug policies that save drug users' lives and keep families together and healthy.  Co-founder and President, Barry Lessin, is also a Pro Talk columnist . 

April graduated from Yale University in 1996. She was a union organizer for healthcare workers for 18 years before going back to school for her Master of Public Health, and spent ten years as Director of Organizing for Pennsylvania's largest nurses' union. She lives in West Philadelphia with her beautiful black cat, Loviefluffy.

Located in Portland, OR, Olivia Pennelle (Liv) is an experienced writer, journalist, and coach. She is the founder of the popular site Liv’s Recovery Kitchen, a site dedicated to helping people flourish in their recovery.

Liv is passionate about challenging limiting mentalities and empowering others to direct their own lives, health, and recovery. You can find her articles across the web on podcasts and addiction recovery websites, including The Fix, Recovery.org, Workit Health, and Ravishly. Liv was recently featured in VICE.

If you're interested in connecting with Liv, you can find her on Instagram. She also created a new Facebook group called Life After 12 Steps, where she proudly sees members thriving, rather than forcing themselves to do something that doesn’t work.

Additionally, Liv offers free resources on her website, including the e-book entitled Nourishing You, which is designed to give you the tools to achieve your health goals in straightforward language.

Tammy Nelson, Ph.D. is a world-renowned expert in sex and relationships, a psychotherapist in private practice and a trainer and seminar leader worldwide. She is the author of several books, including Getting The Sex You Want: Shed Your Inhibitions and Reach New Heights of Passion Together and The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity. She can be found at drtammynelson.com.

Dr. Anne Brown PhD, RN of Sausalito, California, formerly from Aspen, Colorado is a psychotherapist, speaker, coach, and the author of Backbone Power: The Science of Saying No. For over twenty years she served as the trusted advocate and advisor to Influential Corporate leaders, Trial Attorneys, Athletes, Leaders, Physicians and their families whose connections extended far beyond Aspen, Colorado.

Combining her own professional experience with that of her no-nonsense mentor, the former Chilean Minister of Finance, political prisoner of Pinochet and corporate business consultant, Dr. Fernando Flores, Brown used a methodology that helped people reveal their blindness’s and learn to speak authentically thereby decreasing their suffering and increasing their dignity and authenticity. Brown has been described by one client as “having a very caring way of going for the jugular.”

Brown is a graduate of the University of Virginia, BS in Nursing; Boston University, MS in Psychiatric-Mental Health in Nursing; and International University, PhD in Addiction Studies. In 1997 Brown also reached a personal goal of obtaining her Black Belt in Soo Bahk Do.

You can contact Dr. Anne Brown through her website: www.BackbonePower.com

I work with creative people using creative techniques to help you feel better.

I started my career working with unemployed adults, providing counseling and referrals to a wide variety of services. From there, I transitioned to working with older adolescents and adults involved in the criminal justice system, managing a supportive internship program, helping people prepare for interviews and working one-on-one and in groups for therapy. As a side project, I taught yoga and meditation at Riker’s Island to sentenced inmates. I hold a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Hunter College with a clinical focus; during my time there I extensively studied how trauma manifests in the body and methods for releasing it. My research also included an exploration of power and privilege, a concept that I'm committed to exploring with clients. In my spare time I practice yoga and meditation, which play an important role in my clinical work.

In my professional life, I’ve worked with many people in therapy for the first time. I’ve become adept at creating a safe environment and building trust with people who are apprehensive about the process. I’m a patient and empathetic listener, but I don’t shy away from offering feedback and respectful challenges. I often utilize mindfulness techniques such as breath work and body awareness exercises to look for clues about unconscious feelings. I like to create assignments collaboratively between sessions to test out new techniques, which can help progress go faster and change be more enduring.

Stanton Peele has been innovating in the addiction field since the publication of his first book, Love and Addiction, in 1975, including addiction to activities and experiences other than substances, harm reduction, skills and coping approaches to recovery, values and purpose as antidotes to addiction, and mindfulness/self-acceptance (loving kindness) precepts shared with Buddhist meditation. He has published 250 articles and 12 books, including The Meaning of Addiction (1985), Diseasing of America (1989), The Truth About Addiction and Recovery (1991), 7 Tools To Beat Addiction (2004), Addiction-Proof Your Child (2007), and Recover! Stop Thinking Like an Addict, in 2014. He was the clinical director and designer of the Life Process Program for a residential rehab that is now an on-line program.