About Sharmen
Sharmen Rutherford offers a straightforward, compassionate approach to therapy. She is an LPC-MHSP and a Licensed Professional Counselor with 16 years of experience. She listens, gives clear feedback, and helps people build skills to face difficult moments.
She focuses on stress, anxiety, addictions, trauma and abuse, eating concerns, depression, relationship struggles, grief, sleep problems, anger, self-esteem, career challenges, bipolar concerns, and ADHD. Additional areas include attachment and family of origin issues, body image, codependency, divorce and separation, domestic violence, dissociation, and forgiveness.
Background and approach
She also supports people dealing with first responder issues and compassion fatigue. In sessions she uses practical, evidence-informed methods such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, client-centered work, and mindfulness. Conversations are grounded and direct.
She helps clients set goals, try new skills, and check what is working. Her experience includes work with substance use and co-occurring disorders, trauma-related concerns, and eating-related struggles. She draws on 16 years of practice to match approaches to each person's needs.
Sessions aim to create small, manageable changes that add up over time. Sharmen practices from Alabama and provides care in English. She offers several online formats including video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging.
Prospective clients start by completing a short matching questionnaire and scheduling a session.
Therapeutic approaches suited to online care
Sharmen often uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which helps people clarify what matters most and take small actions toward those values even when feelings are hard to face. It can help with anxiety, depression, and ongoing stress by shifting focus to meaningful activity.She also uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to identify unhelpful thoughts and try different behaviors. CBT is practical and works well for anxiety, sleep problems, mood concerns, and many everyday struggles.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will collaborate with each person to decide which methods fit their goals and preferences. That may mean starting with one approach and adding skills from another over time.
Online sessions offer flexibility for people with busy schedules or limited local options. Video calls let the therapist and client work face-to-face when visual cues help. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is low or a camera-free check-in is preferred. Live chat and text-based messaging provide shorter, more frequent touchpoints for skill practice or brief support between sessions.
These options make it simpler to fit therapy into workdays, caregiving routines, or recovery schedules, while keeping the focus on practical steps and steady progress.
Questions people ask
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What this counselor works with
Also listed
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 16 years
- Licensed
- Alabama, Tennessee
- Languages
- English