Assistant Professor
Telephone: 617-552-4921
Email: captari@bc.edu
ORCID
Counseling Psychology in Context: Social Action, Consultation, and Collaboration
Disaster聽Mental Health Counseling
Applied Psychology Practicum
Culturally and spiritually responsive mental health treatment; psychodynamic psychotherapy; positive psychology and virtues; complex and intergenerational trauma; immigration and forced migration; adverse religious experiences/religious trauma; existential and spiritual struggles; collective approaches to trauma healing; therapist burnout and flourishing; perinatal and early relational health
Dr. Laura E. Captari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology at Boston College whose work explores the many facets of trauma healing. She completed her Ph.D. in counseling psychology (University of North Texas) with a child and family concentration, and her pre-doctoral internship at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center/Icahn School of Medicine in New York. Her post-doctoral training and tenure as an academic researcher at the Albert and Jessie Danielsen Institute at Boston University catalyzed her specialization in culturally and spiritually responsive mental healthcare. In line with her relational epistemology, she has also completed fellowships in infant-parent mental health, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and group psychotherapy.
Dr. Captari directs the Trauma, Spirituality, and Flourishing Lab, which examines the dynamic inter-relationships between these areas across the lifespan. Her interests coalesce around the developmental, relational, and existential impacts of complex trauma, disaster, and loss, with projects branching into diverse areas, such as聽such as (a) healing from adverse religious experiences, (b) addressing intergenerational trauma, (c) bolstering perinatal well-being, (d) supporting the unique needs of immigrants and refugees, and (e) catalyzing therapists' sense of flourishing.
Using mixed-methods and community-based approaches, Dr. Captari's research brings an embodied and collective understanding of trauma into conversation with spirituality and positive psychology, examining the import of culturally embedded strengths (e.g., humility, gratitude, forgiveness, hope, curiosity), attachment processes, communal practices, and engagement with nature as potential pathways to resilience and flourishing, particularly for those who hold marginalized identities. She is especially interested in emotionally laden inflection points in life, such as matrescence and migration. Her research program spans psychotherapy studies, community partnerships to support collective healing, and formation-focused interventions (e.g., CHRYSALIS) to address helping professionals' risk for burnout and vicarious trauma.
Dr. Captari serves on the editorial boards of Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy听补苍诲 Spirituality in Clinical Practice, and is co-author of Systemic Treatment of Trauma-Impacted Families: A Clinician鈥檚 Guide to Assessment, Formulation, and Intervention (American Psychological Association). She maintains a small private practice in Brookline and is a clinical supervisor and research affiliate at the Albert and Jessie Danielsen Institute clinic.