Melissa Stahl

If you keep finding yourself in the same arguments, the same shutdowns, or the same loop of feeling more reactive than you want to be, you're not broken. There's usually a younger version of you driving the bus. I work with teens, adults, and women navigating relationship strain, family-of-origin patterns, anxiety, and grief, including the kind that doesn't come with a death attached to it. Clients tell me I'm warm, steady, and easy to talk to. They also tell me I notice things they didn't realize they were saying out loud.

My approach is collaborative and curious, drawing on Internal Family Systems, attachment-based work, ACT, and CBT. In plain terms, that means we get curious about the parts of you that show up in hard moments instead of trying to silence them. I ask thoughtful questions, reflect back patterns I'm hearing, and bring in tools that fit your real life, not a textbook. We move at your pace. The goal isn't to white-knuckle better behavior; it's to understand what's actually driving the reaction so it stops running the show.

Session one is mostly conversation. I'll ask what brought you in now (versus six months ago), what's been weighing on you, and what you'd want to feel different by the end of summer. There's no script and no homework. By the end you'll have a clearer picture of how I work and a starting plan for what we'll focus on. Outside of sessions I'm usually outside, watching sports, or with my family, and I bring that same grounded energy into the room.