Therapy

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Shimila is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Registered Nurse. Shimila received her MSW from Radford University. Her research background is in mindfulness and burnout in the human services field. Shimila has been cultivating her own personal mindfulness practice for many years, which has inspired her passion to help others through providing counseling as well as teaching and co-facilitating experiential and didactic outpatient groups and public workshops.

Shimila’s clinical approach is focused on meeting you right where you are in your journey. She offers a safe, empathic, yet provocative environment for you to share your experiences and begin to work to bring new insights, perspectives and compassion to areas of your life that may need care and attention. Specialties include trauma, depression, anger management, anxiety, substance use, borderline personality disorder, parental coaching, grief and loss, relationship issues, marriage and family problems, child and adolescent behavioral challenges. She works with adolescents, adults, couples, families and groups.

Modalities

There is no one size fits all approach to therapy. You are a constellation of incredible feelings, experiences, beliefs, sensations and all parts of you are welcome in each and every therapy session! We will work together to synthesize a space that meets your needs. I have found that Internal Family Systems offers a path to support a deeper understanding of what makes us tick as well as a way to connect to our intrinsic Self that is there but sometimes forgotten. From this Self connection we can heal and grow! I also use Nonviolent communication to support finding language to identify and communicate your needs, feelings and sensations. Some of our parts simply were never taught the life skills needed to navigate this complex world. I have found that DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) provides just such a tool kit in areas of emotional regulation, interpersonal relationships, and distress tolerance. Underlying all these approaches is a foundational mindfulness education that will allow you to gradually clarify and refine your self awareness without judgment and with compassion and curiosity.