Rachael Townsend, MA, Clinical Psychology
Staff Counselor

- Office
- Counseling-Service Building 235
- Tel
- (802) 443-5141
- rtownsend@middlebury.edu
- Additional Programs
- Center for Health and Wellness
Rachael has worked with a diverse population of youth, adults, and families since 2013. She most recently comes to Middlebury from a community mental health practice, where she worked with individuals experiencing homelessness and substance use disorders. Rachael is passionate about providing support to individuals who are navigating crisis, marginalization, and individuation. She prioritizes the process of gaining self-awareness and self-acceptance, recognizing the complexity and value of integrating our many different parts.
Her approach is integrative and rooted strongly in a person-centered, anti-oppressive, existential, somatic, and humanistic framework. She believes that an integral component of counseling is to create a nonjudgmental, compassionate, and safe space for growth to occur and approaches this work with curiosity and respect. Rachael’s approach aligns to support individuals in their development as authorities in their own healing process.
Rachael grew up in rural Vermont and has a background in clinical and folk herbalism, in addition to visual and performing arts. She is also an adjunct professor in the Graduate Clinical Psychology program at Saint Michael’s College in Winooski, VT.