Melissa Garthwaite received her M.A. in Existential Phenomenological Psychology from Seattle University. Melissa is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in the state of Washington with over 20 years of experience. She is also a child mental health specialist. Her experience includes providing individual, couples and family therapy to adults, adolescents and children as well as supervising graduate students and post-graduate therapists. She is is a Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor (RPT-S) and has facilitated therapeutic art groups. Melissa founded the Washington Association for Play Therapy in 2008 and served as its President for 2009 and 2010. In addition, she has been an early childhood mental health consultant for Headstart, supervised residential staff in a treatment facility for adolescents, and provided a variety of community based services to individual and families in the Seattle area since 1998.