About Michelle
I am on a mission to help you live a life of joy and resilience
Background and Education:
I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. I received my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Texas Tech University (wreck em' Tech!), where I studied Community, Family, and Addiction Services, followed by Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I am a wife, mother of a precious and feral toddler, and dog mama. I enjoy spending free time with my family, cooking, exercising and weightlifting, sticking my nose in a book, nerding out and learning, deepening my spiritual life, and being outdoors.
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Experience:
I have over eleven years of experience in social services and the psychology field, mostly in acute care, including: community mental health care, crisis intervention for domestic violence survivors, inpatient psychiatric hospitalization, and I have worked in all levels of care for substance abuse treatment including: intensive outpatient (IOP), partial hospitalization (PHP), sober living, and residential care. Lastly, I have been in private practice working primarily with trauma since 2019. I have experience and specialized trauma training in Eye Movement, Desensitization and Reprocessing, Biblical Counseling, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Internal Family Systems (also known as "Parts Work"), as well as a focus on Somatic and Attachment-focused therapy.
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What it's like to work with me:
My therapeutic style is deeply compassionate and faith-centered, with a focus on building resilience through your relationship with God and assisted by various clinical methods. I am gentle yet honest, playful yet purposeful, creative, and dedicated to truly hearing and knowing your story.
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I love teaching and offering insight into the inner workings of the psyche, nervous system, and neurobiology. In our work together, I hold space for both your pain and your growth, always with the intention of addressing the God-shaped hole in the human heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
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This work is my calling, and I approach it with passion and commitment. I am a lifelong learner, a voracious reader, a disciple of God's Word, and constantly studying to deepen my skills, knowledge and understanding of the human person. Most importantly, I take time to know you as a whole person and to create a safe space where your defenses can soften, so we can dig into the deeper work of healing and transformation together.
"If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He will also give life to you because of His Spirit who lives in you."
Romans 8:11
Why I chose to practice Christian Counseling
"For you made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."
St. Augustine
Psychology used to be widely defined as the study of the soul. In my experience in this field, I encountered a burdening deficit in modern/secular mental health that leaves many looping in their pain. In this experience, I learned that healing cannot be understood apart from our spiritual nature, because we are complex beings made for a distinct purpose, with a particular design and moral law that guides us in everything we do.
Furthermore, the root of human suffering and our path to healing, especially when it comes to trauma, is often spiritual in nature - this became blatantly apparent to me in working with the addiction recovery community for much of my career. Unresolved trauma and adversity can distort our connection with God, disrupt our sense of identity, send us on a hopeless pursuit of pleasure and numbing, and leave us feeling spiritually fragmented or empty. The answer to this kind of pain is bigger than we are.
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I understand the human person as a sacred being, created for love and designed with inherent dignity, worth, and value. Modern psychology alone fails to deliver a holistic worldview that can support true and long-lasting healing because it skips over the spiritual element of our nature. As JPII famously said, "It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you."​