Experience

I am a professional counselor, licensed by the State of Maryland, and I have additional graduate degrees in education and practical theology.  I am currently in training to become a psychoanalyst and have a broad range of experience.

For ten years, I provided counseling, as well as spiritual and emotional support, to patients and their loved ones as a chaplain in palliative and hospice care.  Being with people in the context of loss can highlight what truly matters:  often, it's our relationships, what we make of our lives, and what helps us make sense of the world.  

I've worked with people of widely varying socio-economic circumstances and diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds; people who are LGBTQIA+ and straight, and people who identify within a spectrum of genders; people who are coupled, single, and non-monogomous; old and young and in the middle.  Prior to my work as a chaplain, I was an associate pastor for six years.

Both settings in which I've previously worked - large congregations and healthcare - involved corporate structures, strategies, and demands, as well as leadership, collegiality, and caring for people,

Some patients in my practice hold executive positions in their professional lives. Some are on the front lines as healthcare providers or skilled laborers. Some are creatives. They are also connected to family members, and friend and social groups; some feel quite alone and isolated. Some are early in their careers; some are students or returning to school; and some are retired.

In addition to work in conventional settings, I have done volunteer work in coal mining towns of Appalachia and with homeless people in inner-city Atlanta.  I have managed a coffee shop and worked as a temp.  I have taught middle schoolers and mentored teens.

It is a privilege to be with people in meaningful ways.  From a seventh-grade boy who shows courage dancing in classes full of girls, to the mother of an adolescent in harm's way, each one demonstrating strength ... from a blustery attorney finding his authentic self, to a retired educator who entrusts me with the honor of officiating for her funeral, people along the way teach me about being true and being alive.  

​They open the way for me to continue to learn the art and craft of psychotherapy; and, in ways perhaps they could never imagine, they help me better understand the experience of being human - including my own.  

Sarah Diehl