MONICA BAND, LPC (DC, VA, VT), CRC, NCC, CCC, ACS

Dr. Monica P. Band (she/her) is an award-winning practicing mental health therapist and educator on a mission to make mental health care more diverse, equitable, and inclusive for the next generation. She has dedicated and committed her clinical work to better understanding and facilitating healing dialogues around intergenerational trauma and cultural identity work within her shared communities.

Dr. Band is the owner and founder of a group private practice, Mindful Healing Counseling Services, LLC, based in Washington DC. She is licensed to practice in DC, VA, and VT. She has advanced clinical training in addressing attachment issues in adults with complex trauma using Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and other somatic, mindfulness-based interventions. Dr. Band specializes in providing trauma informed care for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), with an emphasis on Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) and LGBTQIA+ communities. She also provides clinical supervision and mentorship to pre-licensed professionals interested in becoming culturally responsive practitioners. She is proud to represent her communities at this year’s Psychotherapy Network Symposium as a faculty person.

Dr. Band is on executive leadership boards for the American Counseling Association (ACA) to include: a member of the Inaugural Anti-racism Commission and a second term as the Vice President of AAPI Concerns for the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (AMCD). She is a past-President of the Virginia Counselors Association (VCA). Notably, she has served on the ACA’s Cultural Encounters Task Force, with the purpose of operationalizing the profession’s social justice and multicultural cultural competencies. She is a founding member of Virginia’s Society for Sexual, Affectional, Intersex, and Gender Expansive Identities (formally, VA-ALGBTIC) and Virginia’s Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling.

Dr. Band is an Adjunct Professor in Counseling at George Mason University and a former Assistant Professor in Counseling at Marymount University. She proudly provides subject matter expertise for non-profits, such as The AAKOMA Project (focusing specifically on the mental health needs of Youth of Color) and The JED Foundation (focusing on emotional education and suicide prevention of our nation’s teens and young adults). Dr. Band is a Design Council member for Pivotal Ventures’ Adolescents Mental Health Portfolio, whose mission is to co-create strategy design to shape decision making around increasing culturally competent mental health care for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ youth.