Melissa is a licensed associate counselor with experience working in community behavioral health and university counseling settings with clients aged 7 to 72, providing support for a variety of concerns including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, dissociative disorders, mood disorders, personality disorders, traumatic history, relationship concerns, family conflict, phase-of-life concerns, discrimination, bullying, court involvement, substance use, chronic illness, grief, ADHD, OCD, and autism. As an autistic person herself, Melissa is passionate about working with neurodivergent individuals and operates from a neuroaffirmative lens. Melissa prioritizes collaboration in the therapeutic process, believing that each person is the expert of their life–every person is different, with a unique set of lived experiences, identities, and perspectives, so she believes that treatment should be unique to each person, too. Treatment involves community and self-advocacy, incorporating intersectional cultural identities, supporting clients’ personal treatment goals, fostering self-compassion, and building community support, as well as incorporating concepts from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as applicable.
In her spare time, Melissa likes to play Nintendo games, read, and write music, and she is the Dungeon Master for her friends’ Dungeons & Dragons group.
