Meet Our Counselors

Elizabeth McFarland, MS, LPC/MHSP

***Elizabeth is available Online, and Fridays in our Johnson City Office By Request

Elizabeth McFarland, MS, LPC/MHSP

Elizabeth, “Liza”, is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Mental Health Service Provider, in Tennessee with a clinical focus on adults, emerging adults, and adolescents. Liza comes to Thriveworks with significant experience treating substance use and trauma related issues.  As a therapist, she empowers individuals to build self-confidence and a satisfying life.  Liza assists clients to leverage their strengths and harness their abilities to create their own solutions throughout treatment.  While understanding where someone comes from can help them move forward, she believes that the most effective focus of treatment is on the present.

Liza ensures that clients feel heard and she welcomes her clients into therapy with compassion, non-judgement, and authenticity.  She aims to foster a collaborative relationship that leads to personal growth and empowerment.  In her words, "I'm not in charge, I'm not your boss, we are a team."

Liza is a new mother to a little girl and the wife of a disabled veteran. She moved to East Tennessee recently to be closer to family and has fallen in love with the community and natural beauty. Liza received her master's degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Georgia. After graduation, she worked for a private agency in North Georgia providing a combination of in-home and in-office therapy.

Mary O’Keeffe, MA, LMFT

Mary O'Keeffe is a licensed marital and family therapist in the state of Tennessee with over 20 years of experience. Besides working with couples and families, marriage and family therapists take a unique, systems approach when working with individuals. This means that a marriage and family therapist will explore, with the client, patterns of interaction with significant others that impact the client. Mary has worked in a variety of settings: church counseling center, college campus, and community mental health agency. She believes these varied experiences give breadth and depth to her therapeutic perspective.

Mary is a graduate of Ohio State University with an undergraduate degree in psychology. She received her masters degree from East Tennessee State University. She has taught at ETSU and at Northeast State Community College. Mary served as a board member for the Tennessee Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and has served on panels administering oral examinations to candidates for state licensure as professional counselors and marriage and family therapists.

All of the above addresses the ‘science’ of therapy. However, Mary also believes there is an ‘art’ to therapy that is deeply soulful. “I find it humbling that clients open their lives and hearts to me. It is an honor to assist clients in discovering a happier and more peaceful path in their lives. I consider my office a sacred space – a place that is a safe haven for clients to put down their masks and look at their vulnerabilities.” Mary believes that healing comes from addressing the wholeness of our personhood – body, mind and spirit. She is comfortable working with clients within their religious framework. She has worked with Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, along with agnostics and atheists, too. She sees therapy as a partnership, client and therapist working jointly to assist the client in fulfilling his or her goals.

Emily L. Newland, MEd, MA, LPC/MHSP

Emily has a passion for helping others discover and create their best life. One of her fundamental beliefs is that when we are living our best life, we not only make ourselves more beautiful, but we also make our world more beautiful. It is, simply, a more efficient way to live. Sometimes our stories get so muddled with pain that comfort becomes a foreign concept. No matter what the root issue, therapy is one of the most efficient and effective ways to become re-acquainted, and more comfortable, with a comfort-based life.

Emily received her Master’s degree in Counseling from East Tennessee State University, and has worked for the past 20 years in the counseling field. She has experience working in every facet of the mental health vocation, including trauma recovery, community mental health, inpatient, outpatient, group therapy, case management, and the criminal justice system. Because of her experience, she has the ability to effectively treat a wide range of issues, including: trauma, anxiety, and mood disorders (such as depression and bipolar mood disorder), and issues related to: stage of life, grief and loss, self-care, and healthy relationships.

Therapy is one of the best gifts any of us can give ourselves, for by taking the time to work on pain in real time, as it happens, we prevent ourselves from the energetic drain that cumulative pain inevitably creates.

Hunter D. Cook, MS, LPC/MHSP

Hunter Cook is a Licensed Professional Counselor who grew up locally in the southwest Virginia, east Tennessee region. He has worked in a variety of settings including inpatient mental health, adolescent residential, community mental health, as well as providing services to youth in the juvenile justice system. He always strives to provide compassionate care to individuals of all ages in all walks of life. Hunter makes it a priority to work with his client’s to bring out their innate strengths in order to improve their lives. He does so by encouraging acceptance of their current life situation and working towards living in a manner more consistent with the client’s deeply held values of what is important to them.

Hunter thoroughly enjoys working with individuals, couples, and families and he has a great deal of experience working with children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral difficulties including trauma. He understands that many times seeking help for life difficulties can often be hard, embarrassing, or even scary for both the client and even their family. Hunter feels that there is no wrong reason to seek assistance for the difficulties faced throughout life.

Having been trained at Morehead State University and obtaining a master’s degree in clinical psychology, it is Hunter’s goal to assist his client’s in achieving their goals and promoting a rich, full, and valuable life for each person who he works with. When working with Hunter, the client is the expert on their life and as such, he will partner with the client each step of the way to ensure their needs are being met. Hunter always brings his unique personality into the counseling relationship in the hopes of encouraging conversation that is relaxed, genuine, open, and even fun!