Sandy has been doing this work since before she had a name for it. She still believes every person who walks through her door has the capacity to change — and she's been proven right enough times to know it's true.
She grew up in what she calls a colorful family — the kind that gives you an early education in the full range of human complexity. Long before she had the credentials or the vocabulary, she was already the one listening, trying to help, figuring out what was underneath the surface. That instinct never left.
More than forty years later, Sandy is still doing exactly that — still as interested in what makes people tick as she was as a child, still convinced that most of what holds people back can be resolved rather than just managed, if you know where to look. She has no plans to retire. Ever.
Sandy spent thirty years as a school counselor and guidance director at high schools throughout the Columbia area. That work went well beyond guidance — it was genuine therapeutic practice with students and families navigating some of the hardest periods of their lives.
One of her most significant contributions was a program she designed herself: an in-school suspension model that kept struggling students in school while providing them with real therapeutic support. Rather than simply removing a student and hoping the problem resolved itself, the program addressed what was actually driving the behavior. Students got help. Families got involved. The work mattered.
Meet people where the problem actually lives — not where it's easiest to reach. That's been the through-line of Sandy's entire career.
That program was an early expression of an instinct Sandy has returned to throughout her practice: find the root, address it there, and help people stay in their lives while doing the work.
For fifteen years alongside her school work, Sandy served as a contract therapist with the Pre-Trial Intervention program in Lexington County — facilitating group therapy with first-time offenders as an alternative to incarceration.
That work gave people a genuine chance to understand and address what had led them to that point, rather than simply having a consequence applied and moving on. The groups were challenging, honest, and — more often than most people would expect — transformative.
It reinforced something she had come to believe deeply: that real change is possible for almost anyone, and that the goal of therapy isn't to manage a problem indefinitely but to resolve it.
Sandy's decades of work with families — in schools, in community settings, in private practice — led naturally to a deep interest in conflict resolution. In 2006 she became a Certified Family Court Mediator in South Carolina, adding mediation to the services she provides.
What she values most about mediation is what it has in common with the therapy work she's always done: the people in the room are active participants in the outcome. No one is waiting for a decision to be handed down. They're working toward something together, which means the agreements that emerge from that process tend to hold.
It is her experience that both therapy and alternative dispute resolution, done well, produce lasting solutions — because everyone had a real hand in making them.
Sandy has lived in Columbia her entire life and loves all things Southern — summer heat included, even if it has to be endured rather than enjoyed. She has no intention of going anywhere.
She has two adult children and two grandchildren she describes, without hesitation, as absolutely precious. For most of her life, she didn't really have hobbies — there was always work, family, and more work. Then, relatively recently, she discovered scrapbooking and jewelry design more or less simultaneously, and has been making up for lost time ever since.
Fun and humor are not optional in Sandy's life. They're how she takes care of herself so she can keep showing up for everyone else. If you call her office, you'll probably hear both.
Sandy speaks personally with every new client before their first appointment — to answer your questions, explain what the work looks like for your specific situation, and make sure it's the right fit.