About Michelle
Michelle Goodwater is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) based in Washington with seven years of experience. She focuses on anxiety and related concerns and aims to make talking about hard things feel manageable. Her style is warm and interactive and she works to meet each person's needs without labels.
Michelle often helps people dealing with stress, trauma and abuse, grief, depression, and problems with sleep or anger. She also supports those facing relationship and intimacy challenges, caregiving strain, career changes, and complicated feelings like guilt, shame, or emptiness.
Background and approach
Michelle lists compassion fatigue and coaching among her practice interests. Her approach blends practical, evidence-informed methods. Michelle draws on cognitive behavioral techniques to spot unhelpful thinking and build new habits.
She also uses client-centered methods to keep the focus on the person's goals and values. For people working through past trauma, Michelle can incorporate EMDR and DBT-informed skills to help reduce distress and build emotional regulation. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is part of her toolkit for helping people clarify what matters and take committed action despite difficult thoughts or feelings.
Sessions are offered in English and delivered online by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging. Michelle uses a subscription-based model that can be canceled at any time and tailors plans and pacing to fit each person's life and goals.
Therapeutic approaches that work online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice painful thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them, and then take steps that match their values. ACT can be useful when anxiety or avoidance is keeping someone from living the life they want.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying thought patterns and behaviors that maintain distress, and then practicing small, concrete changes. CBT is commonly used for anxiety, sleep problems, and depression. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a trauma-focused method that can reduce the intensity of traumatic memories by guiding processing in structured ways; it is often used for people with a history of abuse or other significant trauma.
Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will discuss goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t helped in the past, then adapt techniques over time. Clients and the therapist decide together which methods to try and how quickly to move forward.
Online sessions make this work more flexible. Video calls let people practice skills and do therapeutic exercises face to face. Phone sessions are a good option when video is difficult or bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text-based messaging support quick check-ins, coaching-style reminders, or steady contact between longer sessions. These options help therapy fit around work, family, and daily life while keeping progress consistent.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Multicultural concerns
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Experience
- 7 years
- Licensed
- Washington
- Languages
- English
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