Therapists in Ohio

Welcome! I'm Alexis McDonald, LISW-S Please take a moment to acknowledge you have taken the first step towards bettering your mental health because, you have taken the first step by simply looking into how you can begin to address what you are experiencing. I strive to create a safe and welcoming environment that allows clients to explore obstacles with concerns related to anxiety, depression, trauma and/or self-care. I focus on helping clients develop assertive communication & boundaries with themselves and those around them that can help improve their quality of life. Counseling can foster personal development in whatever way you may be seeking and help build the life you so deeply deserve. If that's what you're looking for, I'm here when you're ready to share.

Before anything else, I want to honor you for being here. For continuing to live, to breathe, and to reach for support after experiences that shattered safety, dignity, and trust at their core. Some of you survived genocide, imprisonment, starvation, and the systematic attempt to erase your humanity. Others endured incest, repeated sexual abuse, rape, and profound betrayal by those who were meant to protect you. What you lived through was not just painful—it was overwhelming, violating, and life-altering. The people I work with include Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors, as well as individuals who lived through severe childhood trauma and repeated sexual violence. These experiences do not simply live in memory; they live in the body and nervous system. Survival required extraordinary adaptation—hypervigilance, emotional restraint, dissociation, silence, endurance. These responses were not choices you made freely. They were ways your system kept you alive when there were no safe options. Many of my clients are deeply perceptive and capable. They learned early how to read danger, to manage others’ emotions, or to disappear in order to survive. Often, they function well on the outside while carrying fear, grief, shame, or numbness inside. What they are seeking now is not more explanation or analysis. They are seeking safety—something they may never have known. The ability to feel grounded in their bodies, to experience closeness without fear, and to rest without remaining on guard. Our work together is slow, respectful, and paced to your nervous system. We do not rush healing or force meaning. We focus on rebuilding internal safety, restoring choice, and gently supporting the parts of you that learned to survive unthinkable conditions—while making room for the parts that long to live, connect, and feel at home in themselves again.

At different points in our lives, we may encounter challenges that feel overwhelming. Often, the hardest step is simply reaching out for help. I am a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in the state of Ohio, credentialed by the Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapist Board. I earned my Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Malone University (2022) and my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Southern New Hampshire University (2020). I currently serve as Secretary on the Board for the Society for Sexual, Affectional, Intersex, and Gender Expansive Identities of Ohio and was honored to be the 2022–2023 Emerging Leader for the Ohio Association for Specialists in Group Work.