Licensed to practice in North Carolina and accepts 9 insurances. Specializes in Anxiety, Burnout, Life Transitions
New to Grow
Hi, I’m Melissa Parrish, a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor. I believe therapy should be a place where you can show up exactly as you are and you don’t have to have everything figured out before asking for support. My approach is warm, compassionate, practical, and down-to-earth. I use evidence-based approaches, including CBT and DBT, while recognizing that every person’s story is different. I work with individuals navigating grief and loss, trauma, life transitions, relationship concerns, caregiver stress, workplace challenges, and difficult or overwhelming seasons of life. My background also includes crisis intervention and supporting individuals, families, and first responders following critical incidents and traumatic events. For clients who desire it, I offer Christian counseling and faith-integrated therapy. Your faith and spiritual beliefs can be incorporated into our work together as much or as little as feels comfortable to you. Above all, I want you to feel heard, respected, and supported. Therapy doesn’t mean you have to have it all together. We can start right where you are and work together toward healing, hope, and greater peace.
Our first session is about creating a safe, comfortable space where you can begin sharing your story without fear of judgment. You don’t need to arrive with the perfect words, know exactly what your goals are, or tell me your entire life story in an hour. We’ll talk about what brought you to therapy, what life looks like for you right now, and what you hope might be different. I’ll ask questions, listen, and help you begin making sense of some of the pieces you’ve been carrying. Most importantly, we’ll move at a pace that feels comfortable for you. I hope you leave our first session feeling heard, understood, supported, and perhaps a little lighter than when you came in. You’ll also have an opportunity to get to know me and decide whether I feel like the right therapist for you. You don’t have to solve everything in the first session. My goal is simply to provide a safe place where you can take that first step toward mending the pieces, restoring hope, and finding peace.
I bring warmth, compassion, authenticity, and a little humor into the therapy room. I want you to feel comfortable being yourself—even when life feels messy. I believe there is a time to simply sit with someone in their pain and a time to gently challenge them toward growth. I try to offer both. I’m not here to judge you or tell you how to live your life, but I also won’t just nod along when I see an opportunity to help you look at something differently. My years of experience working with people during crises, loss, trauma, workplace challenges, and major life transitions have taught me that people are often much stronger than they realize. I’m comfortable sitting with difficult emotions and hard conversations, while also helping you identify practical ways to move forward. I also bring my own humanity into the room. I believe therapy works best when you feel like you’re talking to a real person—someone who will listen, laugh with you when appropriate, encourage you, and help you find hope when it’s difficult to see. My goal is for therapy to feel like something we are doing together.
My ideal client is someone who may look like they’re holding everything together on the outside but feels overwhelmed, exhausted, stuck, or simply not like themselves on the inside. You may be navigating grief or loss, trauma, relationship difficulties, caregiving, work stress, a major life transition, or a season that didn’t turn out the way you expected. You don’t have to know exactly what’s wrong or even what you want from therapy. Sometimes you just know that something needs to change. I especially enjoy working with people who want a therapist who is compassionate and genuine, but who will also gently challenge them when needed. You may want practical tools and new ways of thinking, but you also need a safe place to talk about the things that hurt. If faith is important to you, we can incorporate Christian counseling and your relationship with God into our work together. If it isn’t, that’s okay too. You don’t have to come to therapy with all the pieces neatly organized. We’ll start with where you are and work from there.
I use CBT to help you better understand the connection between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Together, we’ll identify patterns of thinking that may be contributing to stress, anxiety, sadness, or feeling stuck and explore healthier, more balanced ways of looking at situations. This doesn’t mean simply “thinking positively.” It’s about learning to recognize thoughts that may not be helping you, understanding where they come from, and developing practical ways to respond differently. My approach is collaborative and realistic. We’ll work together to find strategies that fit your life and help you feel more confident managing challenges outside of our sessions.
I use DBT to help you develop practical skills for handling difficult emotions, stressful situations, and relationship challenges. We may work on ways to manage overwhelming feelings, tolerate distress without making the situation worse, communicate your needs more effectively, set healthy boundaries, and stay grounded in the present moment. One of the things I appreciate most about DBT is the balance between acceptance and change. Sometimes we need to acknowledge and accept what we cannot change, while also recognizing the areas where we do have choices. Rather than just talking about what’s difficult, we’ll work together on tools you can actually use in everyday life. The goal is to help you feel more equipped to navigate challenges, strengthen relationships, and respond to difficult moments in healthier ways.
For clients who desire it, I offer Christian counseling that integrates faith into the therapeutic process. I believe our relationship with God can be an important source of hope, strength, comfort, and meaning, especially during difficult seasons of life. Depending on what feels meaningful to you, we may explore your concerns through a biblical perspective, discuss how your faith relates to what you are experiencing, incorporate Scripture, or simply create space for you to talk openly about your relationship with God. Faith-based therapy does not mean ignoring difficult emotions or suggesting that you simply need to “have more faith.” Your struggles are real and deserve to be heard and understood. I combine evidence-based therapeutic approaches with Christian principles while respecting where you are in your own faith journey. My goal is to provide a safe, compassionate space where faith and mental health can be addressed together as we work toward healing, restoring hope, and finding peace.
I use mindfulness to help you slow down, become more aware of what you’re experiencing in the moment, and respond to difficult thoughts and emotions rather than automatically reacting to them. This might include learning grounding techniques, noticing thoughts without immediately believing or judging them, becoming more aware of emotions and physical sensations, or practicing ways to stay present when your mind feels overwhelmed. Mindfulness doesn’t have to mean meditation or clearing your mind. It can be as simple as learning to pause, notice what’s happening within you, and give yourself space to choose what comes next. Over time, these skills can help you feel more grounded, manage stress and difficult emotions, and approach yourself and your experiences with greater patience and compassion.
Sometimes we know we want something to change but feel unsure, stuck, or not quite ready to take the next step. I use Motivational Interviewing to help you explore those feelings without pressure or judgment. Rather than telling you what you “should” do, I’ll help you identify what matters most to you, explore what may be getting in the way, and recognize your own reasons for wanting change. Together, we can build on your strengths, identify realistic goals, and turn “I know something needs to change” into small, manageable steps forward. The goal isn’t for me to motivate you, it’s to help you discover and strengthen the motivation that already exists within you.