About Ryan
Ryan Shelby Butler greets people with a calm, straightforward style. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) based in Arizona with seven years of clinical experience. He talks plainly and helps people sort through stress, anxiety, depression, grief, addictions, relationship struggles, parenting strain, and life transitions.
Ryan studied psychology, philosophy, and business before earning a master’s degree in professional counseling. He also completed a post-graduate program in Christian counseling. His background includes years working in higher education where he provided guidance, advising, and practical support to students and staff.
Background and approach
In sessions he focuses on realistic, hands-on steps people can use right away. He blends person-centered listening with cognitive and dialectical behavior tools. He also draws on attachment ideas and acceptance-based methods to help people understand patterns and build new habits.
Ryan describes his work as values-driven and purpose-focused. He encourages clients to identify strengths and use them to move past what holds them back. Spiritual or faith questions are welcome when they matter to the person.
Outside of practice he spends time with family, serves in church leadership, and enjoys reading and the outdoors. He aims to make therapy a practical, respectful collaboration for people trying to reclaim balance and meaning in their lives.
Therapeutic approaches adapted for online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them. It emphasizes choosing actions that match personal values, which can help with anxiety, depression, and life transitions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing them with small behavior changes; it often suits stress, panic, and mood concerns. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) supplies practical skills for managing strong emotions and improving relationships through mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.Choosing an approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will listen to your goals and try methods that fit your situation. Together you can adapt techniques and change course if something does not feel helpful, aiming for tools you can use between sessions.
Online therapy offers several practical advantages. Video calls let you work face-to-face from wherever you are, while phone sessions use less bandwidth and can fit into a work break. Live chat and text-based messaging make brief check-ins and reminders easy between sessions. These options make it simpler to keep regular contact, try homework exercises, and keep momentum when life gets busy.
Questions people ask
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What this counselor works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Gottman Method
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Systemic Therapy
- Experience
- 7 years
- Licensed
- Arizona
- Languages
- English