Erin Hipple, MSW, MA, LCSW, PhD
Assistant Professor
ehipple@wcupa.edu
Curriculum Vitae
Degrees
- MA in Psychology: West Chester University
- MSW in Social Work: Widener University
- PhD in Social Work: Widener University
Erin Hipple, MSW, MA, LCSW, PhD (they/them/theirs) is an educator, trauma therapist, and qualitative researcher. Their background is in social work, psychology, human sexuality studies, theater, music, and writing. They received their MA in Psychology at West Chester University and their MSW and PhD in Social Work at Widener University. Erin’s teaching, scholarship, and therapy practices are informed by principles of harm reduction, transformative justice, disability justice, anarchist pedagogies, and intersectional + global feminisms. Their interests include fat + body liberation, exploring the history and role of therapy as political, centering lived experience + resisting pathology in mental health contexts, and exploring individual + collective healing through liberation-based frames and resistance to oppressive systems.
Most recently, Erin was part of a writing collaborative that wrote a chapter entitled Death to Powerpoint, Life to Relational Engaged Pedagogy for an anthology entitled bell hooks’ Radical Pedagogy: New Visions of Feminism, Justice, Love and Resistance in the Classroom, published by Bloomsbury Press. Erin has also recently published an article for the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare entitled A Path Wayward: Resisting “Evidence-Based” Discourse in Favor of Critical Access, Engaged Relational Pedagogy and a Politicized Somatics. Erin also currently has articles under review regarding social work and public health labor rights, social worker perceptions of the relationship between clinical practice and activism, and reflections on Macro Motivational Interviewing as a site of visioning liberatory directions in therapeutic care.
They have several current and upcoming projects and interests, including participating in a multidisciplinary, international writing/research/performance collaborative in the development of Critical Eating Dis/Order studies, the development of a framework for supporting educators and trainers in teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation beyond infographics, and exploring the experiences of people who seek alternatives to Western therapy including ritual and earth-based spiritualities such as witchcraft. In 2023, they were a presenter at the sixth annual Trauma Training Conference in Philadelphia, PA with their talk Trauma is Political: A Politicized Somatics and Narrative Therapy in Treatment. In April 2024, they were a featured storyteller at the Folx Tales Un-conference, held by the Narrative Therapy Initiative in Boston, Massachusetts.
Erin seeks to cultivate accessible and relational educational spaces that center action against oppressive systems through an ethic of care, creativity, joy, body liberation, expansive practices of consent, and self-reflection in the individual/collective pursuit of more fertile and sustainable futures.