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Where Connection Becomes Clinical Care
Before Cydne was a therapist, she was a hairstylist. And if you ask her, the distance between social work and styling isn’t quite as wide as one might think.
Cydne came to social work by way of a psychology degree and a styling chair. As a stylist, she noticed something: clients didn’t just come in for a cut. They came to talk, to be heard, and to connect. “Hairstylists are almost like therapists for their clients,” she says. “I found a lot of meaning in that.” The thought that followed was natural: she wanted to become a therapist, so connection could lead to healing.
She enrolled in a graduate mental health counseling program at William James College at the start of the COVID pandemic — and the timing couldn’t have made the need more visible. She watched the mental health crisis unfold in real time, deepening her conviction that this was the work she was meant to do. Her focus sharpened around unpacking trauma: in relationships, in family systems, from childhood. The roots of struggle, and how to help people grow through them.
Building a Foundation at Eliot
During her graduate internship, Cydne came to Eliot — placed at a DCF group home where she quickly found her footing. Working with adolescents and young adults felt natural; she’d spent much of her life connecting with that age group, and the relationships she built there confirmed it.
She went on to spend two years as a clinical director, gaining deep experience in leadership, administration, and program design — including building a wraparound model of care. It was meaningful work, and it made her a stronger clinician. But Cydne wanted to keep growing. When a DYS position with Eliot opened up, she stepped into it.
Being Part of the Community
Now a senior mental health clinician at Adira Place, Cydne works with teen and young adult girls in a residential setting, running daily group therapy and weekly individual sessions. But what sets residential work apart, she’ll tell you, isn’t just the clinical hours. It’s the in-between moments.
Cydne is embedded in the life of the program — present for community meetings, available when dysregulation happens, and right there to help the girls process and develop self-regulation skills in real time. She brings in occupational therapy-style materials to support hands-on learning, and she’s attentive to the full picture of each young person’s life: connecting the dots between what happens in the home, the community, and the therapy room.
What she values most is the opportunity the residential setting creates for the girls to be self-empowered: to advocate for themselves, to practice agency, to build identity. “They have real opportunities to use their voice here,” she says.
What’s Next: Bringing Families Into the Room
Cydne is expanding her practice into family therapy, working not just with the teens, but with their parents and the broader family system. It’s a natural next step for someone who has always believed that healing doesn’t happen in isolation. The relationships that shaped a young person are often the same ones that hold the key to their growth.
