Sumi Holman, MSW, LCSW-C

 

Ms. Sumi Holman LCSW-C is a licensed clinical social worker with nine years of experience in the mental health field. Throughout Sumi’s career, she has taken a special interest in learning about how to provide empathic and supportive counseling to individuals who have experienced trauma, substance abuse, and relational issues. Sumi welcomes both male and female clients and specializes in the assessment of many complex issues such as mood, anxiety, trauma, and attachment.

As a therapist, her style is active, supportive, energetic, and direct. Sumi believes that developing an open and honest relationship with each client helps to enhance the therapeutic work being done and also promotes the authenticity of the connection between therapist and client. Sumi loves to engage with her clients, provide them with helpful feedback, assist with problem-solving, and collaborate with a client on how to reach treatment goals in a realistic and customized way. She is trained in expressive therapy, gestalt sand tray work, CBT, DBT trauma treatment and psychodynamic therapy. Her goal is to gently guide each client in their exploration of self, self in relation to others, decrease distressing symptoms through personalized self-care techniques, process the richness of emotional experiences, resolve conflict, and improve their overall quality of life.

On occasion, Sumi likes to invite her clients to try other forms of self-exploration such as watercolor and sand tray and she has clinical training in the use of these techniques to promote positive change. Sumi believes that the integration between our left “logical” brain and our right “creative brain” can be enhanced by these techniques and be used to strengthen self-esteem, confidence, and overall happiness.

Sumi’s work history has taken her to many different counseling venues over the years such as Sheppard Pratt Hospital on the Adolescent Unit, D.C. Rape Crisis Center, Washington Hospital Center as a S.A.N.E. advocate, the Katherine Thomas School and the Betty Ann Krahnke Center (a residential program for women and children facing domestic violence). Sumi has also enjoyed providing counseling to a diverse population of clients in a community mental health setting as well as within a group private practice.

Sumi is a native to Montgomery County, MD. Although she went out of state for both her undergraduate and graduate degrees she always found herself returning home!  Her personal interests include exploring the many restaurants in the region as a self-acclaimed foodie, ceramic art, painting, swimming, and partaking in a variety of seasonal events in her beloved home state.

 

EDUCATION

• Master of Social Work: Smith College School of Social Work, Northampton, MA
• Bachelor of Arts in Psychology: Albright College, Reading Pennsylvania (Cum Laude)

TREATMENT AREAS

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Mood
• Trauma including sexual assault
• Adoption related issues
• Marital Issues (supplementary to couples counseling)
• Substance Abuse (currently in recovery)
• Life Transitions of Adolescence & Young Adulthood

GROUPS

• Expressive Women's Therapy Group

PRESENTATION

• Clinical Training: Understanding the Dynamics of Relationship Abuse, treatment options to consider
• Walter Johnson High School 2017 Health and Wellness Summit: Stress Management for Adolescents