Counselor In Residence

The Counselor-in-Residence (CR) Program places professionally supervised mental health clinicians directly into the residence halls to address the mental health concerns of residents and Housing and Residence Life staff. CRs are doctoral students in Clinical Psychology or Counselor Education programs who have a Master's degree and have completed at two years of supervised clinical training.

The objective of the CR program is to support the academic and personal growth of students through the provision of on-site and easily accessed consultation and mental-health support services after hours and on the weekends through the Let's Talk initiative.

LET'S TALK

• Want to receive confidential mental health Consultation and Referral?
• Need support in dealing with an issue?
• Are you worried about a friend?

Stop by the Counselor-in-Residence Office Sunday-Friday (5 PM-10 PM) in Room 160 in the Living Learning Center on South Green. NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY! No fees or insurance are required for Let's Talk.

If you need to speak with a CR outside of their office hours, please contact your RA or RD. They would help you locate a CR or a staff member from CPS.

In an emergency situation, call 911 for emergency assistance.

2022-2023 Counselor-in-Residence

Richa Bhatia

I'm a third-year doctoral student in the Counselor Education and Supervision Program. I'm from India and have been studying in the US since 2014. I enjoy working with college students in areas related to low self-esteem, guilt/shame, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and academic distress. My research interests include Compassion-Focused Therapy for college students and counselors, self-care for students, and mindfulness-based interventions. I love animals and enjoy gardening and spending time in nature.

Levi Toback

Levi Toback is an advanced graduate student in the clinical psychology PhD program. His clinical background includes provision of group and individual therapy for adolescents and adults in an inpatient psychiatric setting, behavioral therapy and parent-based interventions for children and adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders, skills-based groups for adolescents with severe emotion dysregulation and disordered eating behaviors, and cognitive-behavioral therapy for young adults with generalized anxiety. He incorporates strategies drawn primarily from cognitive-behavioral therapies, including Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT). In his free time, he enjoys playing board games, practicing Aikido, playing soccer, doing yoga, playing table-top RPG’s, and taking his orange tabby cat Pepperoni on walks around Athens.

Brittany Swansboro

Hello, I’m Brittany and I am so excited to join the OU residence community as a Counselor in Residence!

I received my bachelor's degree with dual majors in psychology and history in 2013 and my master's degree in Clinical Psychology from Cleveland State University in 2015. I am currently a second-year student in the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program here at OU. My research interests focus broadly on the relationship between stress, internalizing disorders, and physical health; in the long run, I hope to identify risk and resiliency factors of these disorders and simultaneously create effective interventions to help reduce the emotional and physical impacts of stress and internalizing disorders.

Before coming to OU, I was the lead Mental Health Worker on an inpatient Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit for over seven years, where I facilitated psychoeducational and therapeutic groups for patients, trained staff, participated in various safety committees, and conducted research on hospital data. I hope to one day return to an academic medical center where I can engage actively with patients and programming across units while also conducting research to better inform that work. (Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about careers in more acute mental health roles such as hospitals, residential facilities, and psychiatric facilities!)

When I'm not engaged in the many responsibilities of grad school I enjoy being outdoors hiking and exploring, kayaking, dancing, working out, reading a good novel, drinking tea, listening to true crime podcasts, talking for hours with my friends, taking naps, drawing, eating noodles in nearly any form, crocheting, laughing, and, more than anything else, hanging out with my seven-pound rescue pup, Copper.