LCSW, 5 years of experience
Hi, I’m Megan Cole, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker practicing in North Carolina. I earned my master’s degree in social work from UNC Chapel Hill in 2008 and became clinically licensed in 2021. Much of my career has been in healthcare, with a focus on hospice and serious illness care. I specialize in supporting people facing serious or life-limiting illness, as well as those navigating caregiver stress, anxiety, anticipatory grief, and grief after a loss. I also have extensive experience walking alongside individuals and families through adoption, infertility, miscarriage, and pregnancy loss.
In our first session, we’ll take time to get to know each other and make sure we’re a good fit. I encourage you to ask any questions that help you feel comfortable. We’ll go over some background information, talk about what brought you to therapy, and explore what you hope to accomplish. Together, we’ll use your questions, concerns, and goals to create a personalized treatment plan that will guide our work and support your path to wellness.
Choosing to seek therapy is both an act of strength and an expression of vulnerability. I feel deeply honored each time a client allows me to walk alongside them as they work through the thoughts, feelings, and challenges holding them back. With many years of experience in healthcare—particularly in hospice, grief, serious illness, infertility, adoption, and pregnancy loss—I am committed to supporting people through some of life’s darkest and most overwhelming seasons. In those valleys, it can feel impossible to believe that things will ever improve, but my role is to help you recognize your own inner strength and discover your capacity for growth, hope, and healing.
The clients I work with are often navigating big life transitions and the difficult feelings that come with them: anxiety, depression, stress, uncertainty, and fear. My goal is to provide a safe, supportive space where you can learn new ways of coping, feel empowered to handle life’s ups and downs, and trust that you have the strength to get through even the hardest times. Change can feel scary and overwhelming, but I believe it also offers an opportunity for growth, healing, and resilience.
Understanding your attachment history, especially the early relationships you had with your parents or caregivers, can provide valuable insight into how you see yourself and how you relate to others. When we explore your attachment style, you become more aware of your emotional responses in stressful situations, and how you form and maintain relationships. This awareness can be really helpful in managing anxiety and depression, healing from past trauma, and improving your current relationships. By recognizing your attachment style, we can work together to build healthier connections and support your emotional well-being.
I believe that we can improve symptoms of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem through encouraging self-compassion, and reducing self-criticism. In Compassion-Focused interventions, we work together to recognize and soothe your painful emotions through teaching mindfulness and self-compassion exercises. We work together to explore the root causes of your negative beliefs about yourself, and then reframe them with kindness, love, and understanding. In so doing, we are able to increase your emotional resilience and help you have healthier relationships with others.
I feel that Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy can be particularly helpful for people struggling with anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other conditions. CBT helps challenge our thoughts and fears by helping us learn healthier ways of thinking and coping with difficult situations, feelings, thoughts, and memories. CBT can also be helpful for people who are struggling with communication and conflict within relationships, people with low self-esteem or self-worth, and people who are coping with chronic stress.
I have worked in hospice and palliative care as a social worker for nearly 15 years. I have extensive knowledge and experience with anticipatory grief (the grieving before the loss has occurred), and all the ways feelings of grief can manifest in our bodies and minds after a loss. I also have experience with grief related to infertility, pregnancy loss, and adoption disruption. I also understand that grief manifests through divorce, job loss, loss of independence, moves, and other major life changes. In grief therapy, we acknowledge and validate your feelings, discuss what you have lost, what you have learned, and what will take with you into the future.
4 ratings with written reviews
May 27, 2025
Megan provides a great sounding board with direct advice and thorough solution-based perspectives that assist me in keeping my emotional balance in my time of grief. Very grateful to have found someone that can assist me during this period of grief.
April 30, 2025
Megan makes me feel more heard and understood than I have experienced in the past with prior therapists. Megan is very welcoming, warm, solution based, educated, wise, uplifting, and truly cares about her patients/clients. I am still a new client to Megan but I feel like our rapport and our therapeutic relationship have really benefited my life in a short amount of time. She also doesn't make me feel as judged as I have felt from previous therapists and that means a lot. Thank you Grow.
April 8, 2025
Megan was very kind, friendly, encouraging, and flexible with my schedule. Looking forward to working with her.