A smiling woman in a pink top.

Stacy Coleman Symons, Ph.D, LP (she/her)

Dr. Symons is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist who works with adults and adolescents, couples and families. She has expertise in psychological assessment, integrative health care, group and individual psychotherapy.

APPROACH

Dr. Symons works with clients to design individually tailored cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal and health interventions. Her clinical aim is to work in partnership with clients to reduce suffering, strengthen trust and establish well-being across the many dimensions of life. Her years spent as a psychologist in hospitals, clinics, courtrooms and classrooms have shaped her view that mental health and suffering are best understood through a unique combination of science and story. She, therefore, strives to help individuals learn to recognize, integrate and ultimately respect the experiences they know, and the stories they are able to tell, while helping them practice intervention strategies within a healing clinical environment. Her goal is to help each client become aware of their unique collection of fragmented, challenging, and splendid narratives, and work to develop collaborative health interventions that have a meaningful, positive impact.

CLINICAL INTERESTS

Dr. Symons’ overall focus is helping adults and older adolescents cope with the challenges posed by a variety of medical and mental health conditions. Her specialty areas include mood and anxiety disorders, trauma, complicated grief, and severe mental illness, as well as helping individuals and families cope with the psychological challenges associated with a variety of acute and chronic medical conditions, including cancer, rare developmental and genetic conditions and organ failure/transplant. Dr. Symons also greatly enjoys working with members of the LGBTQIA+ community and their allies.

EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE

Dr. Symons received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Vanderbilt University in 1998. She completed her pre-doctoral internship and post-doctoral training at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and spent her early career working in university inpatient medical and psychiatric hospital settings.

Dr. Symons has been part of the Twin Cities community in Minnesota for over 20 years. In addition to her clinical work, she has taught at various universities and served as faculty in the Department of Psychology at Saint Catherine University between 2002 and 2014. Her areas of scholarship include clinical and research ethics, qualitative methodology and the assessment of mental health issues in persons with intellectual disabilities. Dr. Symons also serves as a clinical consultant and workshop presenter for a number of mental health and social service agencies throughout the Twin Cities area.

SPECIALTIES
  • Mood & anxiety disorders
  • Trauma & complicated grief
  • Autism
  • Chronic/acute medical conditions
  • LGBTQIA+ individuals
SEEING CLIENTS
  • In-person
  • Virtually