Meet Counseling Psychology Professor Nicole Brown
Professor Nicole Brown joined TFC’s Counseling Psychology department in the fall of 2022. Her husband, Jordan Brown, has been the Director of Spiritual Formation at TFC since 2020. Professor Brown teaches Counseling Skills, Introduction to Counseling, General Psychology, Christ-Centered Counseling, Psychology of Addictions, and Psychology of Motivation.
Originally from a small town in Minnesota, Brown attended Crown College, a sister school to TFC also affiliated with the Christian & Missionary Alliance. She double-majored in psychology and youth ministry at Crown College before completing her master’s degree in mental health counseling at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. She is currently enrolled in a PhD program for counseling and psychological study at Regent University.
Brown has held many jobs since earning her bachelor’s degree. After college, she began working for an electronic medical record company, where she trained clinic staff across the country to use their software. After graduate school, she worked in a university counseling center for both graduate and undergraduate students. She then transitioned to Rawhide Boys Ranch in Wisconsin, where she served as an assessment therapist for adolescent males. She later moved to the Chris Farley House in Wisconsin, which is a residential treatment center for males struggling with addictions. After the program was shut down and housed with another program, Brown decided to join a private practice where she focused her work before transitioning to TFC.
In her many roles, Brown was able to work with people of all ages and help them work through various kinds of trauma. When her husband took the position of Director of Spiritual Formation at TFC, she continued to work in her private practice in Wisconsin via telehealth until she began teaching at TFC this school year. Brown says many of her career changes were a result of moving for positions opening up for her husband.
“I’ve spent much of my career watching God miraculously open doors for me, because as I’ve followed Jordan to the place where we feel like God is leading him, I’ve had to go in an attitude of incredible faith that God might open similar doors for me,” Brown says. “When we came to TFC, it was no different than other times in the past, where I had to trust that God would make a way.”
Brown says early in the couple’s time in Toccoa, God reaffirmed for her that He not only called her husband to TFC, but He had something for her here as well. She had to undergo a two-year process of surrendering to the Lord, watching and waiting in faithful prayer. She says it was in her surrender that she saw God reopen this door through a teaching position in the Counseling Psychology department.
“To me it’s a very miraculous thing that I’m here teaching at TFC, and I don’t take that for granted. I feel like I am exactly where God wants me to be,” Brown says.
The core of Brown’s work is focused on her students and how they can benefit from what she is teaching.
“I consider it a great privilege to be training up future people-helpers. I recognize that not all of my students are going on for more education to become licensed professional counselors, but all of them will utilize the skills that we’re training them in,” Brown says. “And I take great delight in the idea that those skills are going to help spur on transformative change in other people’s lives. It’s really like multiplying my impact. In the counseling office, I have the impact of my individual work, but in the teaching setting, I multiply that impact by huge numbers.”
Brown says she is motivated to do the work she does because of the people who helped her during crises in her own life growing up.
“I wanted to be that person for other people, because it was so meaningful and important for me…,” she says. “There’s no greater privilege than sitting with someone in the darkest areas of their life and getting to help them wade through that. That’s a really sacred space.”
For the future “people-helpers”, Professor Brown says there are a few things they should do in order to maintain a healthy spiritual life and mindset while coaching others who may be in dark places:
Stay grounded in Scripture and prayer.
Practice healthy mental boundaries. She quotes Carl Rogers, who says, “To sense the client’s private world as if it were your own, but without ever losing the as if quality. This is empathy.” Brown says she needs to be able to empathize with her clients but allow herself to separate from her clients’ issues. She gives this image: “When you leave the counseling practice and close the door, envision leaving your clients behind that door. Remind yourself if their issues come back up that they’re back in your office, and they’ll still be there for you when you go back to work.”
Understand that the Christian counselor needs to be there for support, but also needs to trust the process, and trust God, who is holding the client.
Brown further emphasizes the idea that life is short, so it is important to stay grounded.
“Whether it’s 20 years or 50 years or 100 years, it goes by quickly. So figure out what really matters, and live for that,” she says.
Brown offers Hebrews 12:1-3 as an important verse to help others understand Truth.
“We get so stuck in the things that easily entangle in those snares, and we get distracted. When people get to the end of their lives, and they think about what really mattered, oftentimes they’re filled with regret,” Brown says. “So, fix your eyes on Jesus, figure out what really matters, and run hard after it with all of your perseverance, all of your effort!”
Professor Brown loves meeting and supporting students. Contact her through email at nbrown@tfc.edu or stop by her office in Timms Hall (Office 22) for a chat!