Melissa Lester

For over 25 years I have specialized in therapy and counseling, combining Insight oriented and Somatic approaches. I am focused on helping clients reduce their distress, regulate their emotions, resolve their trauma and live more authentic and meaningful lives.

My clinical specialties include Anxiety, Stress & Overwhelm, Depression and other Mood Disorders, Emotional Eating and Binge Eating, Trauma Resolution, LGBTQIA issues (including Coming Out Later In Life), Aging, Loss, Grief and more.

A few of the approaches I use include Meditation & Mindfulness, EFT Tapping, Somatic processing, Progressive Counting, Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy and others. All of these approaches can be used both in our work together, and by you independently when not in session.

Appointments are available Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11 am to 6 pm. Please note that my scheduling is done directly, not via Headway's online platform.

I am currently accepting Aetna via Headway, Medicare Part B and private pay clients.

My early academic training in therapy was psychodynamic and insight oriented. Early on, I began incorporating body based work in the form of a Meditation tradition that encourages energy movement. From there I incorporated acupressure techniques such as Tapping in order to help clients regulate their emotions, often very quickly and very effectively.

Hypnosis and hypnotherapy training from the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and several other organizations allowed me to add hypnosis and trance work to deepen the impact of other techniques. More direct Somatic processing was the natural next step in my practice, allowing me to truly tailor my work to clients' preferred modalities.

I am currently studying and incorporating Internal Family Systems into my work with clients and am excited about this new dimension to my psychodynamic framework.

My approach has been described as organic, warm, funny, and engaging. Authentic connection is deeply important to me and, I believe, must be present in the therapy room for true healing to happen. It is not uncommon that clients remark that a single therapy session with me feels more valuable than several sessions with a previous therapist.

If it's time for you to stop tripping over the same obstacles in your life and move through them once and for all, we may be a good fit for therapy work together. My goal is always to help you get the most relief as quickly as possible and live as authentically and meaningfully as you are ready to.

Using evidence-based somatic and psychodynamic approaches, you will experience relief in our very first session. It really is possible.

We will work from both ends (the present and the past) to resolve, once and for all, the deeper internal obstacles that continue to get in your way and prevent you from living the life you deserve.

Along the way, you will develop a deeper connection to your Self, become more emotionally regulated and feel re-energized by the possibilities that appear to you with greater and greater clarity.