Carrie miceli, lmsw

Hi, I’m Carrie, the founder of Therapeutic Writing Works. My writing journey began at an early age, when I didn’t truly understand it’s full potential or power. What I did understand was how safe it felt and after I wrote down my thoughts, questions, concerns, or problems, I felt better. So I wrote and discovered the depths of my innate ability to work through challenging moments in my life with pen and paper.

Writing has taken many forms in my life so far, from my first diary as a child to turning trauma into creative writing and poetry. Writing, at it’s core, has always provided me with support in the face of asking the hardest questions of myself. After more than 20 years in human services work, I burned out. I needed to get back to my roots and get off the hamster wheel I had been on in social services. With the support of my mentors Karen Dubin, LCSW, Ph.D. and Mardoche Sidor, M.D. of The SWEET Institute https://sweetinstitute.com, I began exploring how I could bring my passion for this type of writing and for the field of social work practice together. That is when I developed my own method of therapeutic writing to help others gain the insights I have gained using these writing tools. My hope is that teaching writing as a tool for therapeutic use to others in human service work can not only help each of you individually, but can also support our field of practice by developing resilience to support ourselves and each other.

I have been working professionally in human services since 1999 and have worked in various areas of practice within the field over the years including: youth-focused work, therapeutic foster-care, domestic violence counseling, rape crisis counseling, criminal justice, family court advocacy, school violence education, violence intervention, and community trainings on various topics related to the field of mental health and wellness. Currently, I work for the New York City Criminal Justice Agency as their Manager of Training & Professional Development in the Queens Supervised Release Program. NYCJA provides pretrial services to the City of New York to reduce unnecessary pretrial detention. You can learn more about the amazing work we do here: https://www.nycja.org/. I am very passionate to provide our staff with the best possible training and professional development opportunities so they may better support our clients through their criminal court experiences. This support is part of the larger goal of creating a more just system in NYC and modeling for the world what pretrial justice can look like. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world”.

I am a licensed master social worker, manager, mother & wife, visual artist, writer, published poet and amateur photographer. I enjoy spending time in nature, reading books, listening to music, baking, visiting museums and playing games with my son. I love to laugh, find joy in all things and see possibility everywhere and in everyone.

Here are a few comments people have shared after working with me: