B.S.Ed., Abilene Christian University
M.Ed. (Curriculum & Instruction), University of Houston
M.Ed. (Community Counseling), Texas Tech University
Ph.D. (Human Development), Texas Tech University

Dr. Montgomery is a faculty member in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and has served at Bushnell in both full-time and adjunct roles since 2015. She received her PhD in Human Development from Texas Tech University; she also has two master’s degrees, one in Counselor Education and another in Curriculum and Instruction. Dr. Montgomery has taught counseling and clinical psychology since 1995 and has assisted four universities, including Bushnell University, in obtaining/renewing CACREP accreditation status for their masters and doctoral counseling programs. She is also the founder and director of Wellspring Development where she provides counseling and values-based consulting to both individuals and faith-based organizations.

With an interest in fostering positive development and mental health across the lifespan, she has authored books for parents and counselors, including Building Bridges to Parents, and 1, 2, 3, 4 Parents!, a multimedia parent training program. Building upon a life-long fascination with counseling theory, she has also published a textbook with Jeffrey Kottler, Theories of Counseling and Therapy, now in its 3rd edition.

A winner of Capella University’s Excellence Award in Scholarship and Research, Dr. Montgomery has long been active in scholarly research, publishing more than 50 journal articles and book chapters. She was an investigator on two NIH grants that designed and evaluated school-based counseling interventions with adolescents and is the past-president of The International Society for Research on Identity. She was a founder and is an editorial board member for Identity: An International Journal of Research and Scholarship and served as consulting research editor for The Professional Counselor. Some of her most oft-cited publications address the development of faith as an aspect of personal identity.