About Shirley
Shirley Williams is a licensed clinical social worker with decades of experience helping people manage anxiety and related concerns. She brings a calm, matter-of-fact manner to sessions and aims to make therapy clear and usable for everyday life. Shirley trained in psychology and social work at Wayne State University and later completed an intensive family therapy program in Ann Arbor.
She has worked across health care, hospice, schools, foster care and adoption services, and pregnancy support programs.
Background and approach
Her background also includes work with people who have disabilities and the caregivers who support them. Alongside social work, Shirley completed a 1,000-hour massage therapy program at the Boulder College of Massage Therapy and earned national certification and a Colorado massage license. This led her to integrate somatic approaches into her work, paying attention to how the body holds stress and trauma.
She draws on Trauma-Focused Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing in ways that fit each person. Shirley also uses creative tools when helpful, such as sound, movement, clay, and other expressive activities that translate into virtual sessions. Shirley talks through practical steps with people who are struggling with grief, relationship concerns, parenting stress, sleep, eating, or life changes.
Her style is collaborative and curious, focusing on what helps someone feel steadier and more able to cope.
Using trauma-informed and narrative approaches online
Shirley uses Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which helps people process distressing memories by pairing focused attention with guided bilateral stimulation to reduce the intensity of traumatic memories. Narrative Therapy helps people tell and reframe their life stories so problems feel more separate from who they are and new choices become visible. Trauma-Focused Therapy concentrates on safety, stabilization, and gradual processing of traumatic events to reduce symptoms and improve daily functioning.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. Shirley will talk with each person about their goals, preferences, and what has or has not worked in the past. Together they decide which techniques to try and adjust the plan as progress is made.
Online sessions can be scheduled as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video is useful for deeper conversation and interactive exercises, phone works well for lower bandwidth or when screens are tiring, and chat or messaging can help with brief check-ins or ongoing coaching between sessions. These options add flexibility for people balancing work, caregiving, or health needs.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Eating disorders
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Stress, Anxiety
- Traumatic brain injury
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 35 years
- Licensed
- Colorado
- Languages
- English
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