As a licensed professional counselor and dance/movement therapist, Kimberlee Bow helps individuals through volunteer work and her own practice to understand the impact emotions and trauma have on the body. Through movement, she introduces an awareness of how emotions show up in the body and then how to use the body to heal and improve.
Kimberlee has worked with kids who have experienced trauma, kids on the autism spectrum, elders and those with Alzheimer’s, caregivers, and veterans.
“One of my clinical specialties is grief work, so I’ve worked with a variety of populations and each one holds a special place in my heart,” Kimberlee says. “Right now, my practice currently focuses on more master athletes, which I like because I think sometimes between the ageism and sexism that’s in sports, they need some support as well.”
Kimberlee previously worked in the nonprofit world, and it is a passion she will never let go of, but leaving to start her own business was a necessary decision to make for her family. Having the freedom to create her schedule allowed her the time to spend with her growing son and family, so she left nonprofit, opened her practice, and went back to school all at the same time as she was having her son.
“During these formative years, I wanted to be present for him,” Kimberlee shares. “That’s why going back to school was so important to us, so that I could be present because I just know that for me, that’s one thing I would regret – not having spent more time with my son and my family at the end of my life.”
With a master’s degree in Somatic Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) from another institution already under her belt, she enrolled in the University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC). Her master’s degree is body-based, and she saw an opportunity to expand on and merge that knowledge with a mental-based degree: a Doctor of Psychology with a Specialization in Sport and Performance Psychology.
Bridging the Gap Between Body and Mind
Kimberlee grew up dancing and always had a love for science. Her undergraduate degree is in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology, so she has a science background but also loves to help people. Her master’s degree was the first opportunity to bring her interests together.
“Somatic Counseling Psychology is the overarching discipline and is body-based, then it splits into body psychology and dance therapy or dance movement therapy,” Kimberlee explains. “I chose DMT because of my dance background, and at the time, people weren’t necessarily acknowledging the role of the body or how important that is when you’re working with mental health, so it was kind of cutting edge.”
Experts in the field identified how trauma, for example, impacts the body and how the body can be used as a source of healing by integrating movement through group exercises that build connection and individual work.
“It’s about bringing the body into the picture and helping them understand as they’re experiencing sadness, for example, to question where they feel that in their body,” Kimberlee explains. “Helping them recognize where they experience emotion and acknowledging that trauma has an impact on the body just as it does the mind.”
Sports psychology also functions in the realm of the mind-body connection, primarily focusing on optimizing an athlete's performance using mental techniques. In addition to dance, Kimberlee has added triathlons to her life, further establishing herself as an athlete. At UAGC, her athletic interests, career in movement, and background in science pieced together perfectly under the sports and performance specialization, which became her second opportunity to bring herself fully into what she chose to do.
Once she entered the program, she recognized an opportunity to bridge movement and sports psychology together.
“We’re not just a mind, and athletes and dancers are using their bodies like skills, but you still feel an emotion in your body because there’s still that reaction, that chemical release when you experience anger, for example,” she explains. “I brought DMT into this degree by looking at how we can bridge fields together, how DMT can help inform sports psychology, and how we can use this in service of people and communities.”
Using Her Education to Give Back
It was not a requirement of her degree, but Kimberlee wanted to find ways to apply some of the skills she was learning in the Doctor of Psychology program and the sports and performance specialization in practice to understand how the discipline works in the real world. She volunteered for the nonprofit organization Pedaling Minds, which teaches kids how to ride their bike.
“It’s a great place to learn about sports and how mental health plays into it,” Kimberlee says. “I love my volunteer work, and I don’t want to ever give it up. It was another thing I put into the mix, but it was also in alignment with my values and how I wanted to show up in the world.”
Kimberlee gives much of her time and energy, and she’s always been one to help others, even since elementary school. She was advanced in school, so she often gave peer support to students with developmental disabilities through a school program. She later volunteered to be a coach for the Special Olympics and taught ice skating, so being engaged with her community and working with people is an important part of life for Kimberlee.
“For me, that’s been one of the best things, really getting to know people one-on-one,” she says. “Just to be with them, sometimes in their darkest moments, like a clinical client going through grief, or watching a sports client successfully complete an Iron Man. To bear witness to some of those things for people is fundamental. To be seen for who you are in the moment, not judged, but just to be present. It’s truly an honor to be there for them.”
In addition to using her UAGC degree to connect with her master athlete clients at work and the kids at Pedaling Minds, she volunteers on the inpatient psychiatric unit with the VA and contributes to suicide prevention awareness in neighboring rural communities.
She also is involved with the UAGC community and is helping to give a voice to the online student population. She organized a suicide prevention awareness event at UAGC along with founding a UAGC student organization called Students Inspired by Sports. She served as vice president and then president of the Human Services Club. She serves as secretary of the Community for Asian Pacific Students & Allies. She works on student governance, and she holds a graduate research assistant position with CRESTSProgram.
With student governance, she helped create the Student Social Justice Initiative, which is a student effort designed to bring culture into the picture and acknowledge the diversity of the students who attend UAGC.
When she graduates in March 2025, she hopes to leave behind a legacy and set an example for others to follow.
“There’s more work to do, and I know there are other students who have great things to say and great things to offer this university, so I really hope that someone will dive in and bring their voice and their gifts.”
Figuring it All Out
In all, Kimberlee has been able to achieve in and out of school, and she acknowledges the privileges that helped her and how prioritization plays into doing what matters most.
“I think the biggest thing that I learned was how to ask for help and support,” she says. “Then the challenge is figuring out what I need help with, what would best serve me and then finding a way to articulate that so it doesn’t become overwhelming, because it can easily become overwhelming. My background is mental health, so I was fortunate to have that understanding, but even therapists and counselors have their challenges in life.”
She recognized that life doesn’t stop if you choose to go back and get a degree, so it is a challenge and a commitment she was choosing to make. Anytime she said “yes” to something, she understood she was saying “no” to something else, but Kimberlee always found that it was worth trying to figure out how to dedicate the appropriate attention to the commitments that aligned with her values.
“It is worth the energy,” Kimberlee says. “It is worth the time to be of service. Because I made that choice to go back to school and then took it back out into the community, I got to meet and work with some amazing people, like the kids I got to work with during my practicum out of school. It’s those life experiences that I look back and say ‘Yes, it’s worth trying to figure this out because in the grand scheme of life, those are the moments that mean something, and school helped provide that.’”
When asked if she has “figured this out” yet now that she’s reaching the finish line to receive her Doctor of Psychology degree, she answered:
“In a graceful, not-so-graceful way. I do not plan to say that I have arrived, but it was worth diving into it and trying to figure it out.”
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Student success stories should not be interpreted as a promise or guarantee of career advancement or future earnings. The stories shared here represent the outcomes of individual students for illustrative purposes only.
The Doctor of Psychology degree program at UAGC is not designed to meet the state educational requirements for a specific professional license or certification in any state. Students seeking licensure or certification in a particular profession shall carefully research the requirements prior to enrollment and regularly review the requirements as they are subject to change. Requirements vary by state. The University of Arizona Global 45 Campus does not guarantee that any professional organization will accept a graduate’s application to sit for any exam for the purpose of professional certification. Further, a criminal record may prevent an applicant from obtaining licensure, certification, or employment in their field of study.
The Doctor of Psychology degree program at UAGC is not a licensure program and does not prepare an individual to become a licensed psychology professional. There is no practicum or internship associated with this degree.