Maggie Feinstein is a master’s level therapist who has distinguished herself in the field of integrated mental health, or working within the medical community to provide brief interventions within the context of medical visits since 2009. She primarily worked in communities with high levels of trauma and poor access to mental health support. She learned a lot about trauma and resilience in this work and applies some of those principals to the work of recovery in Pittsburgh since the shooting on 10/27/18. She was raised in the Squirrel Hill community, did her undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in International Relations and then graduate school at the University of San Francisco in Counseling Psychology. Feinstein has presented at professional conferences on topics of juvenile justice reform and collaborative health care.
She is the director of a Pittsburgh-based organization that fosters a sense of community well-being by providing opportunities for reflection, support, and connection for individuals and their loved ones impacted by the October 2018 attack and others who experience hate-induced trauma. She is humbled daily by the experience of sharing in the vulnerable parts of people’s lives with them.
This cannot be thought of as a conference or a summit. The stakes are simply too high and the data/conversation and methods to drive action more valuable/motivating than any gathering I have attended. I took more than 100 pages of notes and have shared them with my CBS News leadership team, anchors, producers, and correspondents. Nothing about this gathering was easy. The agony around this topic is real. But no one curious about it could ask for a more devoted, rational, or unflinching look into this dark but decipherable world.
