Hi, I'm Shawn Fraine

My path to community psychology consulting started in an unexpected place: the military.

I served in the US Army Reserve for eight years (2003-2011), including a deployment to Iraq as an Assistant Convoy Commander. I led teams in high-pressure situations where cohesion meant everything. I learned early that psychology drives performance. The units with strong belonging and psychological safety outperformed tactically superior units with weak social bonds. Lives depended on community.

After my military service, I pursued my MA in Clinical Psychology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (2016-2018). My thesis focused on sexual victimization in transgender populations, research that would change everything for me. The work was challenging but necessary: understanding trauma, resilience, and the factors that help marginalized communities survive and thrive.

In 2018, my thesis won the Student and Early Career Psychologist Award from the American Psychological Association. That recognition validated the research, but more importantly, the findings revealed something profound: the strongest predictor of recovery from trauma wasn't therapy techniques or medication, it was community. It was belonging. It was having people who understood you.

That's when I had my 'aha moment.' Everyone was focused on treating trauma after it happened. But what if we could prevent it by building stronger communities? What if belonging wasn't just healing, it was protective?

I shifted my focus to community psychology. I wanted to understand what makes communities work, the psychological mechanisms that turn a collection of individuals into a cohesive, supportive group. I dove deep into frameworks like Psychological Sense of Community (PSOC), Self-Determination Theory, and procedural justice.

From 2018-2022, I worked as a research coordinator at Washington University in St. Louis, managing studies on community-based health interventions. I supervised 30+ research assistants, tracked 3,000+ participants, and saw firsthand how community interventions could change lives.

But then I noticed something troubling.

In 2020, during the pandemic, I started creating YouTube content to stay connected with people. I saw the explosion of online communities. Discord servers, Slack channels, forums, platforms promising connection. Yet people felt more lonely than ever. The tools existed, but the psychology was missing. Everyone was building platforms and tactics without understanding why people actually join, stay, and contribute to communities.

That's when I realized my unique advantage: I could apply clinical psychology frameworks to digital community building. Not theory for theory's sake, but practical application that drives measurable results.

In 2023, I founded Psynergic Digital and launched DramaLlama, a platform for Asian drama and Boys' Love content fans. It was the perfect testing ground: a passionate, underserved community that deserved better than generic streaming platforms. We're not just recommending content; we're fostering belonging using the same PSOC principles that predicted trauma recovery in my research.

Now I help Series A+ companies and established creators do what I wish existed when I started: diagnose the root causes of engagement problems using behavioral science. Because after years of research on trauma, community health, and digital connection, I've learned one truth:

Community isn't just nice to have. It's fundamental to human wellbeing. And if we're going to spend this much time online, we better get the psychology right.

That's what I do at Groupwell Digital: bring rigorous psychological frameworks to digital community building. Evidence over guesswork. Belonging over tactics. Communities that actually heal instead of harm.