About Me
Hi! I’m Michelle.
My friends, colleagues, and clients know me as someone who is reliably and persistently honest. That quality makes me someone who can be trusted and relied upon, and it also makes me a little intense! In my therapy practice, I have learned to nurture and focus my relational courage and radical genuineness, and balance it with love and respect.
I love my work. It is a place to channel my gifts, in particular my propensity for identifying and mapping behavioral and emotional patterns, and my aptitude for creating and sustaining deep emotional connection with others. Ultimately, though, my work supports the life that I love, and the things I enjoy - gardening, walking with my dog, kayaking all over Vermont and the Adirondacks, weightlifting, and cooking.
I hold a Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of Vermont and am licensed as a Clinical Mental Health Counselor in the state of Vermont. My training and expertise is in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), in both intensive outpatient and outpatient settings. DBT is my core worldview and underpins my understanding of people and relationships. I am also trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy. In 2017 I transitioned fully to private practice, with the partnership of two outstanding DBT therapists (www.meridiandbt.com). We were motivated to create a practice that is both client-centered and therapist-centered. It is important to us to be a workplace that supports healthy boundaries and life/work balance, to ensure our clinicians and trainees can spend their careers as therapists without burnout or work dissatisfaction. We believe that therapist health and well-being supports both therapists and the clients they serve. We also value ethics and professional responsibility to our clients, both clinically and administratively.
My Values
Queer justice
I know firsthand the impact of living in a world saturated with compulsory heterosexuality and gender oppression. Coaching LGBTQ people to access their own worth and dignity, and to navigate relationships with family, is one of my primary areas of expertise.
Intuitive eating
I believe that weight and size are unacceptable proxies for health. I am unwilling to assist clients in the pursuit of intentional weight loss - I am, however, passionate about disrupting anti-fat bias, and shifting relationships with food and movement to support self-respect and well-being. I operate from Heath at Every Size (HAES) and Intuitive Eating (IE) frameworks.
Anti-racism
Psychotherapy as a whole has failed to adequately understand and address white supremacy within the field. That’s on me as a white therapist to address, both with clients and in the wider field.
Growth
Life is hard. Healing, becoming a better person, forgiving ourself, making big life changes - these are all hard work. My philosophy is that growth is lifelong and constant. When we believe and integrate this reality, growth and change become less of a crisis and we can approach growth with patience and grit. This is ESPECIALLY true in relationships!
Grace
We all fall short, and we all make mistakes. If we are working to grow and adapt, we probably will take some risks that won’t land. Life tends to go a lot better when we can give ourselves (and often others) grace. It’s tough being human, and we could all use a little patience.
Pleasure
I am invested in working with clients to increase their access to pleasure and to improve their relationship to sex and their bodies, in all the ways relationships and sex manifest. I work with clients who are kinky and vanilla, in poly and monogamous relationship structures, experienced or curious about ethical non-monogamy, and those exploring their relationship to sex and body in the context of gender transition, sexual identity exploration, and following sexual trauma.