{"id":16509,"date":"2025-01-21T15:15:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T20:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/?post_type=ud_entry&#038;p=16509"},"modified":"2026-04-08T16:10:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T20:10:40","slug":"melissa-smigelsky-phd","status":"publish","type":"ud_entry","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/melissa-smigelsky-phd\/","title":{"rendered":"Melissa Smigelsky, PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Smigelsky is a clinical psychologist with Integrative Mental Health (IMH) in the Veterans Health Administration (VA) and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. Her scholarly work focuses on the intersection of mental health and spiritual\/existential concerns, particularly in the context of both individual and communal experiences of trauma and loss. She has authored or co-authored numerous papers on topics including moral injury, suicide bereavement, and complicated grief, as well as psychotherapy process, outcome research, and clinical supervision. She also has experience with community-based participatory research, qualitative methods, and program evaluation. Dr. Smigelsky leads IMH\u2019s efforts in VA to equip chaplains and mental health clinicians to provide moral injury care through education, intervention development, clinical training and consultation, and network facilitation. She provides moral injury care to Veterans within the Durham VA Health Care System.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16510,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"ud_division":[77,79],"class_list":["post-16509","ud_entry","type-ud_entry","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ud_division-clinician","ud_division-faculty","odd"],"acf":[],"ud_entry_custom_fields":{"ud_last_name":"Smigelsky","ud_first_name":"Melissa","ud_gallery_summary":"","ud_telephone":false,"ud_email":"","ud_positions":[{"ud_title":"Research Assistant Professor"},{"ud_title":"Clinical Psychologist, Integrative Mental Health, VHA"}],"ud_options":[],"ud_sort_order":""},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2025\/01\/Melissa-Smigelsky.jpg","featured_image_medium":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2025\/01\/Melissa-Smigelsky-230x300.jpg","featured_image_medium_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2025\/01\/Melissa-Smigelsky.jpg","featured_image_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2025\/01\/Melissa-Smigelsky.jpg","featured_image_thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/839\/2025\/01\/Melissa-Smigelsky-150x150.jpg","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Melissa Smigelsky, PhD | Department of Psychiatry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/psych\/people\/melissa-smigelsky-phd\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Melissa Smigelsky, PhD | Department of Psychiatry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Smigelsky is a clinical psychologist with Integrative Mental Health (IMH) in the Veterans Health Administration (VA) and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. 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