About
Welcome!
I’m Vannessa, a therapist providing online counseling, coaching, and consulting to women in North Carolina and Virginia. As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker since 2006, I have enjoyed helping women and families discover what matters most to them and helping them take steps towards bringing those things into balance in their day-to-day living.
My entire career has centered upon helping others live authentic, empowered, courageous, and meaningful lives as they define it.
I am here because of YOU! I became a therapist because I believe in the power of healing, recovery, and transformation. Having worked in home-based, community, and medical settings, I have been privileged and humbled to witness the strength, courage, resiliency, and transformation of hundreds of clients who invited me into their worlds to hear their stories and walk with them on their healing journeys.
I work from a holistic framework and will work to help you address whole body healing based on your goals.
You come with your own needs, wants, desires, values, frustrations, dreams, hopes, stressors, and wishes, so I tailor interventions to fit your needs.
The approaches I draw from the most to assist us in our work together typically include strategies informed by:
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Radically Open DBT (RO-DBT)
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Motivational Interviewing
- Mindfulness & Integrative Wellness
- Positive Psychology
- 12-Step Recovery
I enjoy incorporating these research-based approaches into our work together because they allow me to assist you in:
- Addressing Intense emotions through mindfulness and skill building
- Increasing psychological flexibility and to improve quality of life
- Building on individual strengths, talents, and ways to harness joyful living
- Addressing unhelpful thoughts, feelings and behaviors and develop new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving
- Addressing symptoms that affect personal, professional and intimate relationships
- Clarifying your values and boundaries that are important to you for empowered living
Not everyone approaches life’s challenges in the same way, so I am here to meet you where you are.
In your way-
In your time-
Based on your needs-
So, whether you want to take baby steps towards a small goal, work out a plan to address a few pressing challenges, or grab life’s challenges by the horns and show them who’s boss, I am ready to work with you in a manner that makes sense to you.
It is here you get to be yourself – no putting on airs – no trying to say what you think I want to hear –
No holding back – whether it’s fussing or cussing!
It’s time you get to say what you’ve been meaning to say to free yourself from what’s holding you back.
My professional journey began after receiving my Bachelor of Social Work degree at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I then went on to complete my Master of Social Work degree at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, where my super independent-dive-in-head-first younger self suddenly realized home-sickness was an actual thing!
I am currently pursuing my PhD-sans home sickness-and I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in the states of North Carolina and Virginia. Additionally, I hold board certifications as a Certified Case Manager (CCM) and an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC).
My ability to work with clients experiencing a variety of diverse challenges has been informed by years of clinical work supporting individuals and families in early intervention, community development, hospital and primary care medical settings. My experiences include direct clinical work, advocacy, case management, lactation consulting, and managing mental health services across multiple medical clinics in two counties as part of a senior leadership team.
I am a creative and an outlier – and I embrace those descriptors fully! I bring humor, creativity, and an insatiable zest for joy to my work. I love the outdoors, gardening, reading too many books at one time, and I thrive in bright sunny places. I was raised in the rooms of 12-Step recovery as a child, and I have been honored to witness and support the hard work of long-term recovery in both my personal and professional relationships.
My perspective, worldview, and respect for all people from all walks of life have been influenced by my own healing journey and my multicultural upbringing and family life.
I also believe coffee is, in fact, its own food group!
I enjoy helping women break free from unhealthy behaviors, understand their strengths and unique gifts, and heal from the challenges of life brought on by depression, anxiety, OCD, shame, self-doubt, marginalization, victimization, perfectionism, illness, career navigation, childhood wounds, mothering, and breastfeeding.
If you’re a woman whose ready to launch your life-well-lived plan with me and you live in North Carolina or Virginia, whether it’s Asheville or Apex, NC or Norfolk or Newport News, VA, contact me today to begin our work together in our online therapy space.