Veronica Franklin, LCPC

Nature & Equine-Assisted Therapy

Veronica Franklin, LCPC, also known professionally as Dr. V, is a licensed counselor, behavioral health executive, clinical supervisor, educator, consultant, researcher, and professional speaker. Her work brings together trauma-responsive care, experiential psychotherapy, nature-informed treatment, psychotherapy incorporating equine interactions, culturally responsive counseling, clinical operations, and behavioral health leadership. She is the founder of Hiking, Healing, & Horses, a Southern Maryland practice providing nature-centered and equine-related therapeutic experiences.

Veronica Franklin, LCPC, currently serves as Director of Urgent Behavioral Health and Operations Manager for Kaiser Permanente’s Largo Medical Office Building in the Mid-Atlantic region, according to her current official professional biography. Her position combines behavioral health operations, urgent-service coordination, clinical leadership, staff support, program development, quality improvement, and attention to the needs of people presenting with immediate or complex mental health concerns.

Veronica Franklin, LCPC, also has a substantial academic and research background. Her scholarship has examined African American women’s decisions to pursue counseling, the support needs of successful African American women in higher education, and factors influencing sports participation among African American female adolescents. These interests reflect a broader commitment to understanding how race, gender, identity, culture, social expectations, educational environments, and access barriers may shape emotional well-being and help-seeking.

Professional Background

Veronica Franklin, LCPC, founded Hiking, Healing, & Horses to expand the settings and experiences through which therapeutic work may occur. Her official profile identifies her as a Certified Nature-Informed Therapist with training connected to PATH International and the Ebony Equine Assisted Therapy Community. The practice incorporates outdoor environments, movement, sensory awareness, reflection, and interactions with horses while emphasizing individualized treatment and cultural responsiveness.

Veronica Franklin, LCPC, previously served as Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Refresh Mental Health Services. Her leadership history also includes responsibility for eating-disorder and substance-use treatment programs in Washington, D.C., and New Mexico. These roles gave her experience with program operations, workforce development, treatment accessibility, organizational culture, and the relationship between clinical quality and the systems surrounding direct care.

Veronica Franklin, LCPC, has taught graduate-level students and held leadership responsibilities in higher education. Her professional biography also identifies her as a Fulbright Scholar and describes international teaching experience in Vienna, Austria. Her educational work spans clinical supervision, counselor development, experiential practice, cultural identity, behavioral health leadership, trauma, wellness, and the professional responsibilities involved in serving diverse populations.

Veronica Franklin, LCPC, completed doctoral research in counselor education and supervision examining factors that influence African American women’s decisions to pursue counseling. Her earlier graduate work in kinesiology and sport psychology explored sports participation among African American female adolescents. She also coauthored a published book chapter addressing the undergraduate support needs of African American women.

Areas of Expertise

Veronica Franklin, LCPC, teaches clinicians to connect experiential methods with careful assessment, professional competence, informed consent, cultural responsiveness, environmental safety, and clearly defined treatment goals. Her work is particularly relevant to therapists interested in moving beyond exclusively verbal interventions while preserving client choice and avoiding overstated claims about emerging approaches.

Nature-Informed Therapy. Veronica Franklin, LCPC, uses outdoor environments, movement, sensory awareness, observation, and reflection to support therapeutic goals. Nature-informed sessions may explore safety, boundaries, transition, grief, resilience, connection, belonging, and the client’s relationship with place. Outdoor therapy requires planning for privacy, accessibility, weather, medical needs, transportation, environmental hazards, emergencies, and the possibility that an outdoor setting may feel activating rather than calming.

Psychotherapy Incorporating Equine Interactions. Dr. Franklin has completed specialized preparation related to incorporating horses into experiential and trauma-informed work. Interactions with horses may offer opportunities to explore attention, communication, fear, confidence, nonverbal behavior, trust, emotional regulation, and relationship patterns. The horse’s behavior should not be interpreted as a diagnosis or proof of a client’s internal state. Instead, the client and therapist can explore what the interaction evoked and whether it relates meaningfully to treatment goals.

The PATH International terminology guidelines recommend using equine-assisted services as the broad field term and therapy-first language when a licensed clinician incorporates horses into counseling or psychotherapy. PATH also emphasizes professional scope, specialized preparation, participant safety, and equine welfare.

Experiential Therapy and the “Soul Nerve.” Dr. Franklin’s Clinical Events training introduces “Soul Nerve” as an educational framework combining nature-informed, equine-related, embodied, relational, and vagus-nerve-informed practices. The phrase should remain clearly identified as the title of her workshop concept. It is not the name of a separate anatomical structure, clinical diagnosis, or independently established treatment model.

Experiential interventions may include movement, imagery, role exploration, creative expression, outdoor activities, sensory awareness, and guided attention to present emotional or physical responses. Clinical Events’ guide to somatic and emerging approaches to trauma treatment offers complementary context for integrating body-oriented methods without overstating their evidence base.

Trauma-Responsive and Embodied Care. Dr. Franklin helps clinicians consider how trauma may affect attention, memory, trust, relationships, bodily activation, emotional regulation, self-perception, and the ability to remain present during distress. Her approach emphasizes collaboration, pacing, choice, and the client’s ability to pause or redirect an intervention. The SAMHSA trauma-informed care framework similarly emphasizes recognizing trauma’s effects, responding through informed policies and practices, and resisting retraumatization.

Body sensations can provide useful information, but clinicians should not assume that every sensation represents a traumatic memory or specific nervous-system event. Clinical Events’ evidence-informed somatic therapy guide discusses grounding, orientation, interoception, movement, resourcing, and titration alongside important cautions about scope, medical factors, dissociation, and client readiness.

Culturally Responsive Care for Black Women. Dr. Franklin’s scholarship and clinical education examine barriers that may affect African American women’s willingness or ability to seek counseling. These can include mistrust of healthcare systems, limited provider representation, stigma, racism, gender expectations, pressure to remain strong, concerns about cultural misunderstanding, and previous negative treatment experiences. Culturally responsive care requires curiosity about the individual rather than assumptions based on group membership.

LGBTQIA+-Affirming Care and Spirituality. Her professional interests also include LGBTQIA+ mental health and the interaction among race, sexuality, spirituality, identity, family, and community. Affirming care does not treat sexual orientation or gender identity as pathology. Spirituality should be incorporated only when it reflects the client’s own worldview and goals, with room to explore both supportive and painful experiences within religious or spiritual communities.

Eating Disorders, Substance Use, and Access to Care. Dr. Franklin’s leadership background includes eating-disorder and substance-use services. Her work encourages clinicians to challenge narrow stereotypes about who develops an eating disorder or seeks addiction treatment. Assessment may need to consider medical risk, trauma, body ideals, athletic history, food access, discrimination, family and cultural beliefs, identity, emotional regulation, and the function of eating, exercise, or substance-use behavior.

Behavioral Health Leadership. Her operational work highlights the connection between treatment quality and organizational systems. Access delays, fragmented communication, staffing shortages, weak supervision, inadequate cultural responsiveness, and unclear workflows can undermine even skilled clinical care. Ethical leadership requires attention to patient safety, workforce support, service coordination, accountability, and sustainable clinical practice. Clinical Events’ guide to therapy ethics, boundaries, confidentiality, and competence offers additional context for professional responsibility and organizational decision-making.

Authored Publications

• Working Against the Odds: The Undergraduate Support Needs of African American Women
• What Factors Influence Sports Participation among Afro-American Female Adolescents
• An Exploratory Grounded Theory Study of the Factors That Influence African American Women’s Decision to Pursue Counseling