About Shelley
Shelley Akerman is a licensed professional counselor practicing in Georgia with 11 years of experience. She draws on work in outpatient and hospital settings to help people address everyday struggles. Shelley keeps sessions relaxed and approachable so people can talk without pressure.
She uses plain language and practical strategies. Sessions focus on what is causing stress or distress now, and on small steps that lead to change. Shelley aims to help people feel heard and understood while they try new ways of coping.
Background and approach
Her background includes supporting people through anxiety, depression, trauma and abuse, grief, and relationship difficulties. She also works with issues like addiction, ADHD, compassion fatigue, and challenges connected to chronic illness or caregiving. Those concerns guide how she plans short- and longer-term work.
Shelley draws from client-centered methods, cognitive behavioral ideas, and mindfulness practices to build skills people can use day to day. Motivational interviewing and narrative approaches are added when exploring values, motivation, and personal stories. She combines these fairly and simply, matching tools to the problem at hand.
People who prefer a down-to-earth, friendly counselor tend to fit well with her style. Sessions move at a practical pace and aim for real-world results. Shelley encourages collaboration, honesty, and steady progress toward the goals people bring to therapy.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Client-centered therapy emphasizes listening and collaboration. The therapist follows the person’s concerns, reflects what they say, and helps them find their own solutions. This approach fits people who want a relationship-focused space to talk through feelings and choices.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors connect. It focuses on practical skills - such as changing unhelpful thinking or building new routines - that reduce anxiety, depression, and stress. Mindfulness therapy teaches simple attention and breathing practices to reduce reactivity and increase calm in daily life.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. Shelley will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what has or has not worked before. She mixes methods in a collaborative way so the plan fits the person rather than using one fixed method.
Online sessions can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when seeing facial cues matters. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can be a good option for a quick check-in. Live chat or text-based messaging can help people who prefer writing or need brief, flexible contact between sessions.
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
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 11 years
- Licensed
- Georgia
- Languages
- English