Janine Murphy-Neilson received her BFA in Theatre from Boston University and after several years of working in professional theatre and supplementing her income by working as an assitant teacher and then a teacher in preschools went on to get an MA in Counseling from Marymount University and has worked in the counseling profession since 1995. She started working with individuals, couples, and families at the Women's Center in Vienna. She also worked through the Women Center at the Good Shepherd Housing Foundation in Alexandria providing counseling to families in a grant based program designed to prevent child abuse. She went into private practice, jmntherapy.com and currently sees clients in Fairfax where she focuses on grief, parenting issues, LGBT and couples counseling. She is also the author of her blog Attention Must Be Paid and a regular contributor of counseling related articles to the website Travellivelearn.com. She is a happy wife to her great husband and a proud mother to two delightful teenagers.