(she/her)
New to Grow
Michelle’s therapeutic approach is grounded in Humanistic principles and thoughtfully integrates Existential, Emotionally Focused, Attachment-Based, and Cognitive Behavioral therapies. She works collaboratively with clients to support personal growth, deepen emotional insight, and help them navigate life’s challenges with greater self-compassion and resilience. Michelle believes that people heal and grow through safe, meaningful connection, and she understands how disruptions in important relationships can leave someone feeling isolated, uncertain, or disconnected from themselves. She offers a warm, supportive, and genuine space where clients can build trust, strengthen relationships, and develop the tools needed to create healthier, more fulfilling connections. Michelle has advanced training and clinical experience in addiction and mental health counseling, with areas of focus that include Rational Emotive Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (RECBT), ADHD, women’s health, grief therapy, and trauma-informed care. Her trauma-informed work also includes approaches such as Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Thanatology.
During the first session, I create space for clients to talk about what is bringing them to therapy and the concerns they would like support with. I use this time to listen closely, understand their experience, and begin forming an initial impression of what may be contributing to the difficulties they are facing. This helps me make sure I am understanding the client’s concerns clearly while also identifying a direction for treatment that feels supportive and meaningful.
My greatest strengths are creating a warm, grounded, and thoughtful therapeutic space where clients feel genuinely seen, heard, and respected. My approach is both compassionate and insight-oriented, helping clients explore the deeper emotional patterns shaping their lives while also building practical tools for change. I am especially strong at helping clients recognize patterns related to attachment wounds, grief, boundaries, over-responsibility, relationship trauma, and self-worth. What often stands out about my work is my ability to integrate Humanistic, relational, and cognitive approaches in a way that feels both supportive and purposeful. I help clients make meaningful connections between their life experiences, emotions, beliefs, and relationship patterns so they can better understand themselves and move toward healthier ways of coping and relating. Clients often come away with greater emotional clarity, stronger self-awareness, improved boundaries, and a more compassionate relationship with themselves. Another strength of my approach is that I meet clients with warmth while still helping them move toward insight, accountability, and lasting growth. I strive to create therapy that feels safe, collaborative, and deeply meaningful, while also helping clients experience real progress in how they relate to themselves and others.
Here is a version expanded past 60 words: I am best positioned to serve women who are navigating health-related stress, grief, boundary struggles, and relationship trauma, and who want to build a stronger, more compassionate relationship with themselves. These clients are often seeking greater clarity, healing, and emotional balance as they work toward healthier patterns, deeper self-understanding, and more meaningful connection in their lives. They may feel overwhelmed, emotionally depleted, or disconnected from themselves, and want support in developing self-trust, resilience, and a greater sense of peace. A slightly warmer version: I am best positioned to serve women who are navigating health-related stress, grief, boundary struggles, and relationship trauma, and who want to build a stronger, more compassionate relationship with themselves. These clients are often looking for greater clarity, healing, and emotional balance as they move toward healthier patterns and deeper self-understanding. Many feel overwhelmed by life experiences or relationships and want support in reconnecting with themselves, strengthening boundaries, and creating more peace, confidence, and meaning in their lives.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Rational Emotive Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (RECBT) helps people understand the connection between their thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and reactions. I use this approach to help clients identify thought patterns that may be increasing distress, such as self-criticism, perfectionism, fear, guilt, or feeling overly responsible for others. Together, we look at how these beliefs may be shaping emotional suffering and keeping clients stuck. From there, I help clients develop more flexible, grounded, and supportive ways of thinking so they can respond to stress, relationships, and life challenges more effectively. I use RECBT with compassion and collaboration, so the work feels both practical and supportive. My goal is to help clients build healthier emotional responses, greater self-acceptance, and lasting coping skills.
Grief Therapy
Grief therapy helps people process loss in a way that honors their experience while making space for healing. I use this approach to support clients who are grieving the death of a loved one, changes in health, relationship loss, life transitions, or other deeply personal losses that can affect emotional well-being. In therapy, I help clients make space for the emotions that come with grief, including sadness, anger, guilt, confusion, numbness, or longing, without pressure to move through the process in a certain way. Together, we work to understand the impact of the loss, care for the emotional pain it creates, and find ways to stay connected to meaning, identity, and hope. I use grief therapy with compassion, patience, and respect for each person’s unique process. My goal is to help clients feel supported as they move through loss, adjust to change, and begin to reconnect with themselves and their lives in a meaningful way.
Trauma Informed Care
I use a trauma-informed approach to help clients understand how painful or overwhelming experiences may continue to affect their emotions, relationships, sense of safety, and daily life. Trauma can shape the way people respond to stress, trust others, view themselves, or cope with difficult situations. In therapy, I help clients recognize patterns that may have developed as ways of surviving, such as hypervigilance, emotional shutdown, self-blame, people-pleasing, or difficulty feeling safe and grounded. Together, we work at a pace that feels supportive, focusing on emotional safety, self-understanding, and building healthier ways of coping. My trauma approach is gentle, collaborative, and grounded in respect for the client’s readiness and lived experience. The goal is not to force disclosure or revisit painful experiences before a client is ready, but to help clients build stability, strengthen self-trust, and move toward healing with greater safety and self-compassion.
Motivational Interviewing
**How I Use Motivational Interviewing** I use Motivational Interviewing to help clients explore change in a way that feels supportive, respectful, and nonjudgmental. This approach is especially helpful when someone feels unsure, stuck, overwhelmed, or pulled in different directions about what they want or need. In therapy, I help clients identify their own reasons for change, clarify what matters most to them, and explore any ambivalence that may be getting in the way. Rather than pushing or directing, I work collaboratively with clients to strengthen motivation, build confidence, and support choices that feel aligned with their values and goals. I use Motivational Interviewing with empathy, curiosity, and respect for each client’s pace. My goal is to help clients feel more empowered, more clear about what they want, and more ready to take meaningful steps toward change.
Couples Counseling
**How I Use Couples Therapy** I use an integrative approach in couples therapy to help partners better understand their relationship patterns, improve communication, and strengthen emotional connection. Every couple brings a unique history, set of stressors, and way of relating, so I draw from different therapeutic approaches based on what will best support the relationship. In therapy, I help couples identify patterns that may be creating distance, conflict, resentment, or disconnection. This may include communication difficulties, emotional reactivity, unmet needs, trust concerns, life stress, or long-standing relational roles that keep partners feeling stuck. Together, we work to slow down these patterns, increase understanding, and create healthier ways of responding to one another. My integrative approach may include helping couples improve emotional awareness, strengthen communication, explore attachment needs, address conflict more effectively, and build a more secure and respectful connection. I work collaboratively with both partners to create a space where each person feels heard, supported, and challenged toward growth. My goal in couples therapy is to help partners move out of painful cycles and toward greater clarity, connection, and stability in their relationship.