Evening Virtual Intensive Outpatient Programming: North Carolina

Regional Executive Director, Outpatient Services

Sloan Huggins, MEd, NCC, LCMHC

Sloan brings a wealth of clinical and operational experience to the Pasadena Villa team. In her role as Regional Executive Director, Outpatient Services, she provides multi-site leadership and coordination for the entire outpatient network in the state of North Carolina. Prior to her role with Pasadena Villa, Sloan was the Executive Program Director of Legacy Freedom Treatment Centers where she oversaw programming for a network of substance abuse treatment facilities in North Carolina and Ohio. Her responsibilities included program and staff development, ensuring programmatic and regulatory compliance, and providing clinical direction and leadership. During her tenure at Legacy, Sloan also developed and implemented a Mental Health Intensive Outpatient Program (MHIOP) and was instrumental in establishing the very first standalone, private detox facility in the state of North Carolina where she also served at Executive Program Director.

Sloan’s clinical experience spans across the continuum of behavioral healthcare. She has facilitated individual, group, couples, and family therapy in both outpatient and inpatient treatment settings and has provided clinical services for community mental health centers and corrections facilities. Sloan previously worked as a Psychotherapist for Carolinas Healthcare System (now Atrium Health) at the Behavioral Health Charlotte Hospital, where she worked on the adult inpatient unit with severe and persistently mentally ill (SPMI) patients. In 2014, Sloan founded her own private practice specializing in the treatment of personality, mood, and substance use disorders. Sloan obtained a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Winthrop University, is a National Certified Counselor, and a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor in North Carolina. Sloan is also a member of the American Counseling Association.

Supervising Physician

Mojeed Akintayo, MD

Dr. Akintayo serves as Jamison Lord DNP’s supervising physician for the Triad location. He joins us with a wide range of experience and expertise with a focus in delivering evidence based mental health services and reducing stigma. Dr. Akintayo specializes in working with all ages of clients experiencing mood disorders, anxiety disorder, women’s health issue’ relating to mental health, ADHD, autism, depressive disorders, psychosis and bipolar disorders.

Mental Health Nurse Practitioner

Jamison Lord, DNP, MSN, PNC, PMHNP-BC

Jamison comes to Pasadena Villa with over 13 years of experience in the mental health field and over 26 years of experience in the medical field. She has worked in various levels of care including inpatient and outpatient settings. Jamison is a distinguished mental health professional, holding credentials as both a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and a Board-Certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP-BC).

Through her work she helps individuals struggling with persistent mental health concerns live fulfilling and independent lives. Jamie Lord also works as an instructor for Duke’s School of Nursing in the MSN Program and the Durham’s Veterans Affair in the VA Nursing Academic Partnership for Graduate Education Program (VANAP-GE).

Lead Psychotherapist

Michele Finkelstein, LCSW, C-DBT

Michele recently relocated to Greensboro from Seattle, Washington where she worked as an outpatient therapist in a community mental health setting. She brings with her a range of experience working with individuals struggling with Substance Use Disorders, PTSD, Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, and co-occurring disorders. Michele is formally trained and certified in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (C-DBT) and utilizes a trauma-informed lens to deliver multiple modalities including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Narrative Therapy throughout treatment. She has a background facilitating a variety of groups including DBT, Seeking Safety, Music Therapy, and EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). Michele strives to create a collaborative and safe space that is guided by client voice and self-determination.

Prior to her clinical work, Michele has had over ten years of experience working for social justice and grassroots initiatives. She received her master’s degree in Social Work from Seattle University and has an undergraduate degree in Peace & Conflict Studies.

Music Therapist

Amos Fisher, MT, BC

After an adventurous New York City career in all kinds of music and healing arts, Amos Fisher returns to his native NC with music psychotherapy training from the seminal humanistic program at NYU Steinhardt. His style is informed by the evidence-based Nordoff-Robbins improvisational approach, noted in the 1950s for its efficacy with nonverbal, multiply handicapped children; also by such composers as John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, and R. Murray Schafer. He is currently launching a private practice in Winston-Salem called Empathetic Resonance Music Therapy, driven by his own foundational theory The Philosophy of Listening.

Under the tutelage of such pioneer music therapists as Alan Turry, Diane Austin, Ken Aigen, and Barbara Hesser, as well as Gestalt Therapy Institute president Frank Bosco, Amos learned to harness his deeply cultivated musicianship, sense of spiritual health, and interpersonal empathy toward reflecting clients’ own musical being back to them, nurturing a new self-awareness and Confidence In Life And Self (Psychospiritual Maturation, Kass, 2015). His clinical experience includes preschool-aged children with hearing impairment and speech delays, acute inpatient adult psychiatry, and adults and children with developmental disabilities, PTSD, and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). From nonverbal to intellectually verbose, Amos’s clients learn to listen to themselves and engage with their world in a new way, in a process ultimately transcendent of words.

Amos believes that music adds dimensionality to therapy, sinking deeper than words or concepts alone. He is excited to offer this as part of the program at Pasadena Villa, at a time when we are all fatigued with isolation from the coVid-19 pandemic. His mission is to create group cohesion in a clinical setting which can grow into the genuine community in the world, fostering mass mental health from where it starts—in the individual’s Listening.