New River Counseling and Wellness, PLLC

AAMFT Approved Supervisors
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Our mission is to provide high quality, holistic therapy services for people across North Carolina and surrounding communities, from Watauga, Ashe, and Avery counties to Pitt, Beaufort, and Craven counties.

The Team

Dr. Sesemann standing in front of trees

Dr. Erin Sesemann, PhD, LMFT


(she/her/hers)

Practice Owner

Location: Boone office and online therapy

 

I take a holistic approach to therapy with the aim of helping my clients improve their overall well-being by bridging the mind-body connection. With specialized training in Medical Family Therapy, EMDR therapy, and brain injuries (certified for 7 years as a certified brain injury specialist through the Brain Injury Association of America), I actively integrate brain and body health into therapy through a variety of different approaches. I strive to create an open, non-judgmental space for people from diverse backgrounds and identities. 

I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in North Carolina and Virginia. I am also an approved Professional Counselor Telehealth Provider in South Carolina, AAMFT Clinical Fellow, and AAMFT Approved Supervisor. Confirm licenses at NCBMFT, VADHP, and SC Board of Examiners. 

Dr. Erin’s Background

My journey in holistic health began during my undergraduate education as I competed as a collegiate athlete. As an student-athlete, I was interested in how my body and mind affected my athletic performance. I came away from this experience appreciating just how closely the mind and body are connected.  

Through my graduate education, I specialized in assessing and treating individuals, couples, and families with consideration of how their culture, societal norms, community, schools, and the environment affect them. This includes paying specific attention to how the healthcare system plays a pivotal role in many people’s well-being. 

I completed my Medical Family Therapy Pre-Doctoral Internship at the C.A.R.F Accredited Rehabilitation Center in Vidant Medical Center, a 900-bed academic medical center in Greenville, North Carolina. Here, I helped start the Medical Family Therapy program for the Rehabilitation Center that provided family therapy to individuals and families who recently experienced life-altering illness or injury that often resulted in new disability. I worked on issues like relationship conflict, family stress, coping, depression, anxiety, grief/loss, adjustment, and PTSD with people who experienced traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injuries or back surgeries, stroke, cancer, amputation, heart failure, and other types of health conditions or medical traumas.

To me, holistic health also means good communication within your healthcare team. At the rehab center, I collaborated with healthcare professionals from a variety of different disciplines: physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech language pathology, recreation therapy, social work, physical medicine and rehabilitation, rehabilitation nursing. Now, in my own practice, I want to discuss what your healthcare team means to you and I am invested in helping you work better with your team. 

The last thing I want to mention about holistic health is that it includes the health of the team members too. Healthy professionals are important to building the foundation of an effective healthcare team. I witnessed the immense toll it takes on people to be employees within this system. As such, I focused my dissertation on developing recommendations for actions that organizations could take to reduce burnout and improve health through addressing employees’ job stress and social connectedness at work. The results of my dissertation titled, “Healthcare Employees Burnout, Job Stress, Health, and Workplace Social Networks: Addressing the Quadruple Aim,” was published in the peer reviewed journal Families, Systems, & Health.

Education

  • PhD in Medical Family Therapy from East Carolina University
  • MS in Marriage and Family Therapy from Oklahoma State University

Credentials

Training in

  • Trauma-focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy 
  • Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction
  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy
  • Filial Therapy 

Ginny, CGC, CGCU, CGCA

Therapy Dog

Location: Boone office

I include my dog, Ginny, into my therapy work as a benefit to clients and the therapeutic work we do together. Ginny is considered a large breed dog as a Golden Retriever. She is approximately 60 lbs and she has long hair. Ginny and I passed our training exams for the American Kennel Club certificates for Canine Good Citizen, Urban Canine Good Citizen, and Advanced Canine Good Citizen. 

Animal Assisted Services or Animal Assisted Therapy

The use of animals in health care is often called animal assisted services or animal assisted therapy (AAT). AAT is defined as a goal-directed intervention, delivered by an appropriately credentialed health or human service professional, in which an animal is incorporated as an integral part of the clinical health care treatment process and utilized during counseling sessions. AAT honors all members of the relationship as equally valued: the client, the handler/therapist, and dog or the animal team member. Learn more from Animal Assisted Service International.

You may opt out of having Ginny participate in your therapy sessions. There is a kennel in my office where she will be separated from you in my office. Please know that the office will still be one where a dog spends a great deal of time, including having her bed, bowl, and toys in the room. 

Animals have individual rights, just as each client has rights. Ginny gets to decide how and when she participates in the sessions. It is important for everyone’s benefit (as well as safety) that she is not coerced or mistreated. She often greets people enthusiastically and then sleeps, but she is also known to wake up and check in with people throughout the session.