Associate Professor, Director of the Counseling Psychology Graduate Program
Ph.D. & M.A. in Counseling Psychology
University of Maryland, College Park
Pre-doctoral Internship
University of Pennsylvania
Counseling and Psychological Services
Clinical Postdoc
Carnegie Mellon University
Counseling and Psychological Services
Multicultural Counseling
Psychotherapy Process and Outcome
Mental Well-being of Helping Professionals
Qualitative Research
Dream Work in Therapy
Spirituality in Therapy
Counseling Psychology
Dr. Sim is primarily interested in multicultural counseling, and making therapy more accessible for minority populations in the US, and populations outside of North America. As most mainstream psychotherapy approaches are developed in mainstream Western cultures, there are significant limitations when conducting culturally sensitive psychotherapy with diverse
populations. Dr. Sim has studied dream work and spirituality as potentially helpful tools to make therapy more accessible for minority and international populations.
Another major theme in Dr. Sim’s research concerns the mental well-being of helping professionals, who work in different settings with populations in need, and may experience stress and burnout as a result of helping those who have experienced trauma and stressful life experiences. Dr. Sim approached this research topic from the perspectives of sustainability and positive psychology, studying factors that contribute to thriving and coping strategies in this population, as well as those factors that lead to stress and burnout.
Dr. Sim teaches Advanced Multicultural Counseling, Counseling Techniques, and Cross-cultural Psychology.
Sim, W. & Stahl, J. (2022). Living with Roommates from Different Cultures: A Qualitative Study of International Students’ Experiences of Multicultural Living-Learning Communities. Journal of College and University Housing, 48 (3), 52 - 69.
Li, X. Sim, W., & Hill, C. E. (2022). Meaning in life measure: a five-item short form and its measurement invariance across gender, age, and cultural contexts, Psychotherapy Research. Advanced online publication.
Sim, W., Li, X., Hwang, J. Y., Hill, C. E., An, M., & Kim, D. H. (2021). The process and outcome of spiritually integrated psychotherapies: A cross-cultural study in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. Psychotherapy, 59(3), 415-430.
Sim, W., Hill, C.E., Duan, C., An, M., Gupta, S., & Prass, M. (2021). Working on Dreams to Facilitate Asian International University Students’ Transition to the United States. Dreaming, 31 (2), 100-116.