About Michelle
Michelle Rittenour offers calm, practical help for people facing stress, anxiety, grief, relationship struggles, substance concerns, and major life changes. She works in a straightforward way so parents and busy adults can find time to talk through immediate problems and plan next steps. Michelle is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with 11 years of practice experience in Texas.
Her sessions focus on the person in front of her. She listens first, then helps clients set clear, realistic goals.
Background and approach
Conversations are collaborative - clients shape what they want from therapy and Michelle helps them test what works. Michelle blends several approaches to match what each person needs. She uses cognitive behavioral ideas to spot unhelpful thinking and practice new behaviors.
She draws on client-centered methods to follow what matters most to the client. She also uses narrative and existential ideas to help people find meaning and rewrite the stories that keep them stuck. Much of her background includes work with people affected by alcohol and drug dependency, both in groups and individual settings.
She also has experience addressing aging and geriatric concerns and supporting people through bereavement and life transitions. Her training includes a bachelor’s in psychology and a master’s in counseling and development from Texas Woman’s University. In sessions she tends to be direct but compassionate, helping clients try small changes between meetings.
Her goal is to make therapy useful and practical so clients can leave sessions with clear steps to try on their own.
Therapy Approaches That Translate Online
Michelle often uses client-centered work online, which means sessions begin with the client’s priorities and move at their pace. This approach helps people focus on what matters most and steer sessions toward practical goals and decisions.She also uses cognitive behavioral therapy, a straightforward method that identifies unhelpful thoughts and tests new behaviors. CBT works well for anxiety, depression, stress, and habit change because it gives concrete tools and small experiments clients can try between sessions.
Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will discuss which methods make sense given the person’s goals, concerns, and preferences and will adjust techniques over time based on what works best.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video lets people read visual cues and build a usual therapy rhythm. Phone sessions can fit a lunch break or require less bandwidth. Live chat and text are useful for brief check-ins, coaching-style support, or when someone prefers typing to talking. These options make it easier to schedule regular sessions and keep progress moving forward.
Questions people ask
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What this counselor works with
Most often
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
- Coping with life changes
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Family conflicts
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 11 years
- Licensed
- Texas
- Languages
- English