About Phyllis
Phyllis Houston is a Licensed Professional Counselor with 26 years of clinical experience. She helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, grief, and relationship strain. Parents and individuals looking for practical ways to cope with life changes often seek her out.
She works from a calm, direct style that focuses on what can change now. Her sessions focus on understanding what’s happening and setting clear goals. Phyllis blends client-centered listening with cognitive behavioral techniques to identify unhelpful thought patterns.
Background and approach
She also draws on emotionally-focused methods to help people notice and shift emotional reactions in relationships. Phyllis favors short-term, goal-oriented work when it fits a person’s needs. She uses motivational interviewing to help people find their own reasons to change.
Existential ideas also appear in sessions when people are weighing big life questions or values. Across her 26 years she has worked with a wide range of concerns including trauma and abuse, parenting stresses, career transitions, compassion fatigue, and challenges tied to aging and caregiving. She aims to help people make clearer choices and reduce the daily burden of worry.
Sessions are offered in English and are provided from Mississippi. Phyllis describes therapy as a collaborative process where the client’s priorities guide each step. She supports practical skills, perspective shifts, and steady steps toward the goals people bring into the room.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Phyllis uses client-centered therapy to build sessions around what matters most to the person. This approach emphasizes active listening, validation, and helping clients set their own priorities. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is used to identify and shift patterns of thinking and behavior that maintain anxiety and depression; it is practical and often focuses on skill building and homework between sessions.Choosing the right approach is part of the work. Phyllis will talk with a client about goals, preferences, and what feels most useful, then she will suggest methods to try. That decision is collaborative and can change as needs evolve during therapy.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video sessions are useful when visual cues help the conversation. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or when someone prefers not to be on camera. Live chat and text messaging are helpful for brief check-ins, coaching-style work, or when a flexible, written option fits someone’s schedule. These options make it easier to keep appointments, fit sessions around work or caregiving, and keep momentum between meetings.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Trauma and abuse
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 26 years
- Licensed
- Mississippi
- Languages
- English
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