After earning a philosophy degree, Katie Lewis saw her career path take a few wild turns. She lived in several different states, exploring roles that included disability advocacy to founding an escape room company, before settling in Minnesota. At the PACER Center, an organization that serves children with disabilities, Katie found her stride helping families navigate the special education system.
When the COVID-19 pandemic happened, Katie saw families dealing with not only potential learning loss but a rise in mental health issues in young people.
“I really loved my job,” she recalls, “but I felt like the range of support I could provide was so narrow. There were so many mental health concerns I wanted to dive into with parents, but I didn't have the training. I had played with the idea of going back to school to become a therapist, but then I felt like, okay, now it's time.”
Motivated to Fully Support Clients
Katie chose the Master of Professional Studies in Integrated Behavioral Health (IBH) for its dual licensure pathway in mental health therapy and substance use counseling. “There is still significant stigma associated with substance use disorder, and many therapists aren’t trained in this area,” she says. ”I didn’t want to have to refer out; I wanted to be able to provide support for recovery myself.”
Plus, Katie could complete her degree while still working full-time. Her employer allowed her to occasionally work remotely and take classes during the day as needed. (The IBH degree can be taken full- or part-time and can be completed primarily online starting fall 2026.) Our advisors will help you balance degree requirements with your other responsibilities in a way that works for you.
Katie says that CCAPS is “incredibly supportive with making it work with student schedules” and that “the faculty really cares a lot.”
Exploring Ambiguous Loss
Katie first encountered the concept of ambiguous loss in Dr. Emily Jordan Jensen’s course, Human Lifespan Development, and it immediately made an impact. Ambiguous loss describes a form of grief that lacks clear resolution or closure, leading to complex and unique experiences of grief. Examples of ambiguous loss can include divorce, dementia, traumatic brain injury and other acquired disabilities, and severe mental health disorders.
“It really helped me contextualize experiences of uncertainty and paradoxical truths experienced both personally, in my family and among many of the families I’d worked with throughout the years,” Katie says.
She dove into the research on her own and approached Dr. Jordan Jensen about doing a directed study on the topic. One outcome of that work was the opportunity to present at the Minnesota Psychological Association. Her presentation, "Applying the Lens of Ambiguous Loss to Support Families of Children with Disabilities," allowed Katie to examine how the theory appears in real family contexts.
Katie drew on her experience with serving populations with disabilities and combined that expertise with Ambiguous Loss Theory. “The presentation generated many practical clinical applications providers could use. It was very well received and many attendees had strong personal connections to the material,” Dr. Jordan Jensen says.
“The faculty are so supportive and excited about nurturing students' curiosity and finding ways to develop a specialty,” Katie adds. “If you find something that really makes you come alive, then there's a lot of support for how to nurture that independently.”
“It was a joy to support Katie in developing her interest,” says Dr. Jordan Jensen. “She is just at the start of an impactful career in mental health and it's been inspiring to work with her!”
Embracing a Growth Mindset
Katie’s unique background in philosophy allows her to view everything through a critical lens. “So much of the practice of philosophy is, you have an idea and then try to find a counter-argument and see if you need to expand or change your idea, and then another counter-argument,” she explains. ”You're trying to always ask, how can I address this? How do I need to transform and adapt how I'm thinking to evolve with the new information we have?”
That perspective is beneficial in making sure that you don’t fall into a set way of thinking or addressing an issue. She believes it’s essential to have humility as a clinician, to accept that you may not get it 100% right every time.
“It’s inevitable that we’ll always look back on practices in this field and see all of the things we didn’t fully understand, ways we could have done things better. Just try to approach your practice from as many different perspectives as possible,” she says. “I'm not coming to this as if I have the answers. It's more just, how do we bring what we've learned and try to support and empower our clients toward the change they want in their own lives? And make sure we never stop questioning, caring, and learning.”
Memorable Course
Applications of Counseling Theories with Emily Jordan Jensen
"The material helps contextualize where we're at in the historical progression of how we approach mental health and different treatment modalities. It's such a cool intersection of mental health and philosophy, because these theories are essentially philosophies of how change occurs, how humans make meaning and find fulfillment in life. The course also includes an opportunity to write a personal position statement on counseling that integrates different theories that inform your theoretical perspective, and I found that to be one of the more meaningful assignments of the program."
Mia Boos is a writer and content strategist with the College of Continuing and Professional Studies, covering the College’s graduate programs and undergraduate individualized degree programs. She joined the CCAPS Marketing team in 2014 and has worked for Thomson Reuters and New York University. Connect with her via LinkedIn.
