Michelle Pereira
You may be someone who keeps pushing through stress, pain, difficult relationships, or past experiences while appearing strong and capable to everyone around you. Yet underneath, you may feel anxious, overwhelmed, exhausted, or stuck. Michelle helps adults understand the patterns keeping them there and develop practical ways to move forward.
Michelle's current interests are advocating for others in the mental health community, multicultural issues, military/veterans living with trauma, self-identity issues and personal development.
Her work is especially focused on anxiety, trauma, chronic pain, relationship concerns, and major life transitions, using an integrative mind-body perspective. Michelle is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, U.S. Navy veteran, and bilingual English-Portuguese therapist with a background in kinesiology, psychology, massage therapy, and health coaching.
First session
In the first session, Michelle focuses on understanding what brought the client in, what has and has not helped, and what they want to change. Clients can expect thoughtful questions, honest conversation, and a clear initial direction for treatment.
Strengths
Clients who work well with Michelle often appreciate that she is not a passive therapist. She is candid, compassionate, curious, and willing to ask difficult questions. Michelle helps clients recognize patterns, challenges them respectfully when needed, and focuses on practical solutions rather than allowing therapy to become an endless discussion of the same problem.
Ideal clients
Michelle works best with adolescents and adults who may appear strong and capable on the outside but feel anxious, overwhelmed, exhausted, stuck, or affected by trauma, chronic pain, relationship stress, or major life changes. Her ideal clients are curious about themselves and ready to participate actively in therapy. They appreciate honest feedback, practical tools, meaningful conversation, and a therapist who will compassionately challenge patterns that may be keeping them from moving forward.
Origin story
Michelle’s career has always centered on understanding people through both the mind and the body. Her experiences in the military, kinesiology, massage therapy, psychology, health coaching, and mental health repeatedly showed her how deeply physical and emotional well-being affect one another. Counseling became the place where those experiences could come together to help people create meaningful change.
Ongoing work together
Ongoing sessions are active, practical, and collaborative. Michelle helps clients identify patterns, practice new skills, and apply what they learn outside therapy. Progress shows up in greater self-awareness, improved coping, healthier choices, and movement toward meaningful goals.
Treatment methods
Dialectical Behavior (DBT)
Michelle uses DBT skills to help clients better understand and manage intense emotions, tolerate distress, improve relationships, and respond to difficult situations more effectively. Sessions focus on practical tools clients can use in everyday life rather than simply understanding why they feel the way they do.
Acceptance and commitment (ACT)
Michelle uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help clients make room for difficult thoughts and emotions without allowing them to control their choices. She helps clients identify what truly matters to them, recognize unhelpful patterns, and take practical steps toward living more consistently with their values.
Motivational Interviewing
Michelle uses Motivational Interviewing to help clients explore ambivalence, identify their own reasons for change, and build confidence in taking meaningful steps forward. Rather than telling clients what they should do, she helps them clarify what matters to them and strengthen their motivation to create lasting change.
Solution-Focused Brief Treatment
Michelle uses Solution-Focused Brief Therapy to help clients identify what they want to change, recognize strengths and resources they may already be using, and develop realistic steps toward progress. Sessions focus less on repeatedly analyzing the problem and more on what is working, what can change, and how clients can begin moving forward.
Location
Virtual sessions