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Dr. Jean knows from many sides the challenges of offering mental health care in the country, where resources can be strained.
She also knows the challenges someone may face when they are living with abuse in a rural area — and leaving that situation may bring greater risk, even with the resources available through the Elizabeth Freeman Center and related places, and finding safety and protection may have challenges.
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Dr. Jean has sat with many people in the midst of hard and painful times, and people who have survived trauma and carry the weight years later.
As a social worker and psychotherapist, in her 30 years of clinical practice in trauma recovery, resilience and mental wellness, she has talked with people not only about finding immediate stability and persevering day to day, but finding paths to healing. As a social worker and psychotherapist, in her 30 years of clinical practice in trauma recovery, resilience building and holistic mental wellness, Dr. Jean has worked with and talked with people of many ages — including children. She has also talked with youth and older people who have survived trauma earlier in their lives. She reflects with care and sadness on this very difficult subject — and she speaks with honesty and clarity. Please be aware, this conversation may contain difficult and triggering language for some people.  Dr. Jean brings her lived experiences and identities to her work, as a therapist offering self-care, culturally responsive treatment approaches and innovative therapeutic techniques for complex trauma, and as a native Jamaican, a voice in the immigrant community, a woman of color.  Along with her extensive clinical practice and advocacy in the DSV (Domestic Sexual Violence) movement, Dr. Jean Clarke-Mitchell draws on her lived experiences in her work. She broke new ground, she says, as a woman who came to the Elizabeth Freeman Center in a hard time in her own life — and founded a commitment to help people who have survived abuse, and pursued her education and work with the Elizabeth Freeman Center, until she became director of clinical services, finally ending her services there to become a university professor. She reflects on the challenges of the work, and on her own path.  Along with her extensive clinical practice and advocacy in the DSV (Domestic Sexual Violence) movement, Dr. Jean Clarke-Mitchell draw on her lived experience, in her work. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S.W. from the Smith College School for Social Work, with training in trauma-informed therapy and multicultural counseling, and she became director of clinical services for the Elizabeth Freeman Center and clinician for the Brien Center. Today she has her own private practice and mentors a new generation of therapists. At BRIDGE, she reflected on the places where her journey began. Some of them, she says, are unprecedented at the center, and she was breaking new ground.  Dr. Jean Clarke-Mitchell, Ph.D. MSW, LICSW, spoke with Multicultural BRIDGE about trauma-informed care. As a Clinical Consultant and Psychotherapist, she speaks with 25 years of clinical experience as a therapist specializing in trauma recovery, resilience building, healing, and holistic mental wellness. She has served as director of clinical services at the Elizabeth Freeman Center, and clinician for the Brien Center for mental health and university professor at Lesley, Smith, Simmonds and more. Today she has her own private practice and mentors a new generation of therapists. She came to BRIDGE Solidarity House on April 16, 2025, to offer mentorship and guidance, as she comes monthly as a part of BRIDGE's health and wellness programming, and she took the time on a spring night to reflect on her work. She sat down with BRIDGE director Gwendolyn VanSant, Gabriela Cruz, Laura, Rosa, Rosi, Sarah Haile, masters in public health at UMass, and Kate Abbott, editor and oral historian from By the Way Berkshires, to record an oral history with technical direction from JV Hampton-VanSant  |
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