Kathryn Douthit

Biography

Kathryn Douthit is a counselor educator who joined the Warner School in 2001 with a scholarly background and career experiences that encouraged her to bridge the worlds of social and biological sciences. Douthit thinks it is crucial to bring together the literatures of science and counseling to form one coherent statement about their relationship that both disciplines can digest and accept.

In her earliest academic and professional experiences, she devoted more than a dozen years to earning degrees in science, teaching undergraduate biology and mathematics courses, working in a tutoring program for medical school students in medical microbiology, and conducting research for use in various federal substance abuse prevention programs.

Through her academic work and career experiences, she has become increasingly interested in the relationship between neuroscience and counseling, and on the neurological changes that can result from effective counseling. As a division counselor in the department of math, science, and allied health at Harrisburg Area Community College, she provided personal and career counseling and academic advising to science and mathematics students.

Her research and doctoral education have produced articles and professional presentations on subjects as complex and diverse as an ecological view of attention deficit disorder, academic failure among gifted students, understanding the relationship between counseling and psychiatric genetics, the inequality of the aging experience, and a critical view of contemporary dementia care.