Meet Jennie Barr, PHD

Eugenia (Jennie) Barr, Ph.D. is a licensed marriage and family therapist and supervisor in Texas and California, practicing for over 35 years as a consultant, clinician, educator, advocate, and public speaker specializing in victims of trauma-based issues and their impact on the family system and on those who assist them.

Currently, Dr. Barr is focusing on mental wellness in sports and the mind-body-spirit interplay of successful competition, performance and transition for athletes. Dr.Barr has worked with a range of athletes from football and baseball players to golfers, divers, swimmers, gymnasts and more. She has provided training and support to Division 1 athletic programs and their entire staff. She realizes that so many issues can impact an athlete’s ability to reach their potential, such as performance readiness, anxiety, personal belief in one own’s ability and the pressure to be “enough,” body image, competition with teammates and others, family and trauma history, effect of COVID-19 and more. Using cognitive-behavioral, systemic and psycho-sensory trauma interventions enables athletes to enhance self-care and harness the power of mental preparation for athletic involvement. The result: ability to reduce and manage stress and anxiety while being ready to return, re-engage in their sports and love what they’re doing.

Dr. Barr worked at the Texas Office of the Attorney General, Crime Victim Services Division for 13 years as director of Sexual Assault Prevention and Crisis Services, served on the Statewide Crisis Consortium, assisted the Criminal Investigations Division on Internet Crimes Against Children and served as mental health support for the division and agency. Prior to that, she was assistant director for the Disaster Assistance Program for federally declared natural, accidental and man-made disasters. She has expertise in traumatic, non-normative or chronic stress issues including domestic violence, sexual assault, chronic illness and stress, and natural or criminal disasters.

Dr. Barr is a clinical fellow of the Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and certified in basic and advanced Critical Incident Stress Management and Critical Response Training. Dr. Barr also has a long tenure teaching, conducting clinical supervision and training of marriage and family therapy students at the university level in Texas and California.

MEET Brad Kennington, LMFT-S, LPC-S

Brad Kennington, LMFT-S, LPC-S has been practicing therapy for nearly 25 years. He specializes in disordered eating and body image issues with a special focus on eating disorders in males. Because of his work with this unique population, Brad has presented on the topic at international and national conferences and for numerous professional organizations and is a contributing author to a chapter in Current Findings on Males with Eating Disorders. In addition, Brad has been quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, HuffPost and in Harvard Medical School’s Almost Anorexic. He has also been interviewed by Newsweek for an article on steroid abuse in adolescent male athletes. Prior to entering private practice, Brad was the executive director of two different eating disorder treatment centers in the Austin area. He also served on the board of the National Association for Males with Eating Disorders before it merged with the National Eating Disorders Association.

Treating eating disorders is how Brad first began working with those involved with sports. In addition to treating athletes with eating and body image issues, Brad works with athletes to address other problems that impact their sport performance and mental health. These include anxiety, mood disorders, sport injury and recovery, post-sport transition, relationship dynamics with coaches, teammates and family members, as well as other concerns. He has consulted with professional and elite athletes, including those who have been recognized on an international level.  Brad has worked with collegiate and high school athletes and those involved with club and recreational sports, with much of his work focusing on NCAA Division 1 athletes.

Brad is a co-founder of Austin Sports Behavioral Health. He has been a contract therapist with the University of Texas at Austin Athletics for nearly ten years.  Brad is also the eating disorder consulting therapist with Driftwood Recovery. He is a Texas board approved supervisor for both LMFT and LPC Associates and is an adjunct clinical affiliate for the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing. He serves on the Academic & Wellness Roundtable with Athlete Foundry and is a past chair of Governmental Affairs for the Texas Division of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

Brad has consulted with law firms and other professional organizations impacted by mental health crises and other issues. He has also provided presentations on mental health and wellness for attorneys, law students and judges through the Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program.

Brad is a native Texan. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with the intent of going to law school. After finishing UT, Brad worked for six years as the chief of staff and legislative director for a state representative. He decided the ‘contact sport’ of politics was not a good fit for his sense of humor and direct style of relating. Instead, he chose to pursue his graduate work in counseling and psychotherapy at Texas State University. Brad enjoys staying active and being outdoors, especially if it involves water. And after a decades-long break from tennis due to injured knees, he is finally enjoying being back on the court again.