Barb Belew lived in Marquette, Michigan from the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. After leaving an abusive marriage, she worked at Marquette General Hospital with Karlyn Rapport, who recommended that she apply for a job at The Women's Center. At the center, Barb worked closely with Sally May to develop programs and services such as a support group for women who had survived childhood sexual abuse. She received a bachelor's in psychology at Northern Michigan University and went on to get a master's and Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Kentucky. Barb subsequently worked at community mental health centers, live-in treatment facilities for people being released from state mental hospitals, rural mental health hospitals, and at her own private psychology practice. In 2009, she returned to the Upper Peninsula and began working at a VA [Veterans' Affairs] hospital in Iron Mountain. Barb discusses how the Women's Center changed her life, her efforts to develop internship programs to bring psychologists to rural areas, and changing definitions of PTSD [Post-traumatic stress disorder] and its ties to domestic violence. Other major topics include her master's thesis on whether there are factors that determine when women at abuse shelters will return to their abusers and her dissertation on how observing violence as a child affects whether people will be aggressive as adults.