Following graduation from Austin Peay State University in 1988, Leigh Anne began her career working at a locked mental health facility in Nashville, TN.
Completing her Master’s degree in Community Agency Counseling in 1991 from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Leigh Anne continued working with children and adolescents. She has extensive experience working with sufferers of childhood trauma, abuse and neglect, profoundly affecting their ability to develop healthy relationships with others.
Leigh Anne has testified in sixteen counties in Tennessee, as well as Florida, Georgia and Missouri, tendered as an expert witness in bonding and attachment, as well as family therapy.
She is a Licensed Professional Counselor, (LPC-MHSP) and a Certified Trauma Treatment Specialist as well as a member of the Association of Traumatic Stress Specialists (ATSS).
She first heard the term Reactive Attachment Disorder around 1993 while working in residential treatment. It was a new term at the time, and even today is billed as a rare disorder. However, she believes it is much more common and frequently at the heart of most of the other mental health issues people suffer. Her concept of “The Child Forgotten” arose from this belief. The Child Forgotten is an individual trapped in a static state of development due to past trauma.
