Rickey Bates
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 10 years of experience providing psychotherapy to adults from diverse backgrounds and life experiences. I am also a U.S. Army Combat Veteran, and my professional experience includes serving in the Veterans Health Administration, where I supported Veterans navigating mental health concerns, life transitions, relationships, housing instability, and other complex challenges. My experiences as both a clinician and Veteran have strengthened my appreciation for resilience, identity, service, and the many ways our experiences shape how we understand ourselves and relate to others. I earned my Master’s degree in Social Work with an academic focus on Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. This training informs my commitment to culturally responsive care and helps me recognize how identity, family, relationships, culture, socioeconomic circumstances, and broader systems can influence mental health and well-being. I approach these conversations with cultural humility, curiosity, and respect for each client’s individual experience.
While therapy can sometimes involve discussing difficult or emotionally uncomfortable topics, I view this as a crucial part of the healing and growth process.
My therapeutic style is person-centered, collaborative, and solution-focused. I believe clients are experts on their own lives, and therapy should provide a supportive space to understand patterns better, identify barriers, build on existing strengths, and develop practical strategies for meaningful change. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, I work collaboratively with each client to establish realistic short- and long-term goals that reflect their individual needs, values, and priorities. My goal is to help clients gain greater insight while also developing tools they can apply outside of therapy. Together, we work toward creating meaningful, sustainable change that supports greater resilience, healthier relationships, improved emotional well-being, and a life that feels more aligned with who they are and where they want to go.
First session
Your first session is an opportunity for us to get to know one another and begin understanding what brought you to therapy. I know starting therapy—especially for the first time—can feel unfamiliar or even uncomfortable, so you are not expected to arrive knowing exactly what to say or where to begin. I will help guide the conversation. We will briefly discuss my approach to therapy, confidentiality, boundaries, and what you can expect from our work together. From there, I will invite you to share what is currently happening in your life, what concerns you would like to address, and what you hope will be different as a result of therapy. I may ask questions about your relationships, emotional well-being, history, coping strategies, strengths, and how your current concerns are affecting your daily life. You are not expected to tell me everything in the first session. Trust develops over time, and you have the right to determine what you are ready to discuss and when. By the end of our first session, my goal is for us to have a clearer understanding of what brought you to therapy, the areas you would like to work on, and some initial treatment goals. I will also discuss therapeutic approaches that may be helpful and answer any questions you have. Most importantly, the first session gives us both an opportunity to determine whether we are a good therapeutic fit. Therapy is collaborative, and I hope you leave knowing we have a direction for our work together and that you will have an active voice in the process.
Strengths
One of my greatest strengths as a therapist is creating a space where clients can feel respected, understood, and comfortable being themselves. I bring warmth, curiosity, appropriate humor, and a nonjudgmental approach to therapy. I also believe growth sometimes requires difficult conversations. I will support you while respectfully challenging patterns, beliefs, or behaviors that may be keeping you from where you want to be. My approach is culturally responsive and informed by my training in Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. I recognize how race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic circumstances, family experiences, and other aspects of identity can influence mental health. This perspective is particularly important in my work with People of Color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and Veterans. As a U.S. Army Combat Veteran and clinician with experience in the Veterans Health Administration, I also bring personal and professional understanding of military culture. Clinically, I use an integrative approach grounded in evidence-based practices, including CBT, DBT, ACT, CPT, Motivational Interviewing, IFS, and the Gottman Method. Rather than assuming one approach works for everyone, I tailor therapy to your individual needs and goals. Most importantly, I balance compassion with accountability and insight with practical action, helping you better understand yourself while developing strategies for meaningful, sustainable change.
Ideal clients
I work best with clients who are ready to understand themselves better, explore patterns honestly, and take meaningful steps toward change—even if they are not yet sure what that change should look like. You may feel stuck in your relationships, overwhelmed by your thoughts or emotions, uncertain about your future, or recognize that the way you have been coping is no longer working. Many of my clients come to therapy for anxiety, overthinking, relationship and communication difficulties, trauma, life transitions, identity concerns, low self-worth, emotional regulation, or patterns of avoidance and self-sabotage. I also have a particular interest in working with Veterans, LGBTQ+ individuals, and People of Color, including clients navigating the intersection of identity, culture, relationships, family expectations, and mental health. You do not need to have everything figured out before coming to therapy. What matters most is a willingness to be curious about yourself and open to examining both what has happened to you and the choices you can make moving forward. My style is active, direct, collaborative, and compassionate. I will listen and provide a supportive, nonjudgmental space. Still, I will also ask meaningful questions, help you connect patterns, respectfully challenge you when appropriate, and provide practical tools you can use outside of our sessions. If you are looking for therapy that balances insight with action, compassion with accountability, and acceptance with meaningful change, we may be a good fit.
Treatment methods
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
I use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help clients understand the connection between their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors—and how these patterns can shape how they experience themselves, their relationships, and everyday challenges. Rather than simply telling you to “think positively,” we work together to identify thought patterns that may be contributing to anxiety, depression, self-doubt, relationship difficulties, or feeling stuck. In sessions, I may help you examine the evidence behind certain thoughts, consider alternative perspectives, recognize recurring patterns, and explore how your thoughts influence your emotional reactions and choices. We may also use practical strategies such as cognitive restructuring, behavioral activation, coping skills, thought exercises, and gradual exposure when appropriate. I approach CBT collaboratively. My role is not to tell you what to think or convince you that your experiences are inaccurate. Instead, I help you become more curious about your thinking, distinguish between thoughts and facts, and determine whether certain beliefs and behaviors are helping you move toward—or away from—the life you want. Ultimately, my goal is for you to develop skills that extend beyond our sessions. As you become more aware of your patterns and learn how to respond differently, you can begin making intentional choices that support healthier relationships, improved emotional well-being, and lasting change.
Dialectical Behavior (DBT)
I use Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to help clients better understand and manage intense emotions, navigate difficult relationships, improve communication, and respond more effectively during stressful situations. One of the principles I value most about DBT is the balance between acceptance and change: learning to accept yourself and your current circumstances while also recognizing behaviors, patterns, or relationships you want to change. In sessions, I incorporate DBT skills based on your individual needs rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. We may focus on mindfulness to increase awareness of thoughts and emotions, emotion regulation to better understand and manage emotional responses, distress tolerance to cope with difficult situations without making them worse, and interpersonal effectiveness to strengthen communication, boundaries, and relationships. I also help clients slow down and examine what happens before, during, and after difficult emotional reactions or behaviors. Together, we can identify triggers, vulnerabilities, thoughts, emotions, and consequences so that you can recognize patterns and develop different ways of responding. A central part of my approach is validation without removing accountability. Your emotions and experiences can be valid while there may also be opportunities to respond differently. My goal is to help you build practical skills to tolerate distress, regulate emotions, communicate your needs, set healthier boundaries, and make choices more consistent with the life and relationships you want.
Gottman method
I use the Gottman Method to help couples better understand their relationship patterns, strengthen their emotional connection, and develop healthier ways to communicate through conflict. I believe the goal of couples therapy is not to eliminate disagreements, but to help partners learn how to navigate differences without damaging the emotional safety and connection within their relationship. In sessions, I help couples identify patterns that may be contributing to disconnection, including criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling—what the Gottman Method describes as the “Four Horsemen.” Rather than focusing on who is right or wrong, we explore what is happening beneath the conflict, what each partner needs, and how both individuals contribute to the relationship dynamic. I incorporate Gottman-based strategies such as Love Maps, building fondness and admiration, turning toward one another, stress-reducing conversations, conflict management, and repair attempts. Couples learn practical ways to communicate needs, listen with greater understanding, respond rather than react, and reconnect after disagreements. I also emphasize mutual accountability. Couples therapy is most effective when both partners are willing to examine their own behaviors rather than focusing exclusively on what the other person needs to change. My goal is to help couples build a relationship in which both partners feel heard, respected, emotionally safe, and connected, while developing skills they can keep using long after therapy ends.
Cognitive Processing (CPT)
I use Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) to help clients understand how traumatic experiences may have changed the way they view themselves, other people, and the world around them. After trauma, it is common to develop beliefs that once helped us make sense of what happened but may now contribute to guilt, shame, fear, mistrust, or feeling stuck. In therapy, we identify these beliefs—often called “stuck points”—and explore them with curiosity rather than judgment. I may use Socratic questioning and other CPT strategies to help you examine whether certain conclusions about yourself or your experiences are accurate, balanced, and helpful. We may explore areas commonly affected by trauma, including safety, trust, power and control, self-esteem, and intimacy. CPT is not about minimizing what happened, forcing you to “look on the bright side,” or convincing you that your reactions are negative. Instead, we work together to separate what happened from the conclusions you may have drawn from it. This can be especially important when trauma has contributed to self-blame or a loss of trust in yourself or others. My experience using CPT, particularly in my work with Veterans and individuals impacted by trauma, has shown me how powerful it can be when clients begin to recognize that their trauma is part of their story without allowing it to define their entire identity. My goal is to help you develop a more balanced understanding of your experiences, reduce trauma-related distress, and reconnect with the people, values, and parts of life that matter to you.
EMDR
I have experience using Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) as a trauma-focused approach for individuals who have experienced PTSD, complex trauma, and other distressing life events. EMDR helps the brain reprocess difficult memories so past experiences feel less emotionally overwhelming and have less influence on how you think, feel, and respond in the present. EMDR recognizes that trauma can affect more than our thoughts. Difficult experiences can also influence emotions, physical sensations, beliefs about ourselves, relationships, and our sense of safety in the world. Through a structured process that includes preparation, identifying specific memories and beliefs, bilateral stimulation, reprocessing, and grounding, EMDR can help clients develop healthier and more adaptive ways of understanding what they experienced. I approach trauma work carefully and collaboratively. Before trauma processing begins, I believe it is important to establish emotional safety, assess readiness, develop coping and grounding skills, and ensure that clients understand what to expect throughout the process. Trauma treatment should never feel rushed or forced. Although I am trained and experienced in EMDR, I do not provide EMDR virtually. Based on my clinical approach, I reserve EMDR for in-person treatment so that I can more closely monitor emotional and physical responses and provide appropriate support throughout trauma processing. Because my current practice is virtual, I may incorporate other evidence-based trauma-informed approaches when working with clients through telehealth.
Location
Virtual sessions