Sallie West

Most people don’t reach out for therapy because they don’t understand what’s happening—they reach out because they’re tired of feeling like they’re constantly running on empty while still trying to keep everything together.

I’m Sallie, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who works with adults navigating anxiety, depression, chronic stress, and emotional overwhelm. Many of the people I work with describe feeling mentally overloaded, stuck in overthinking, or like they’re functioning on the outside while internally feeling drained, scattered, or stuck in survival mode.

In our work together, the focus is not just on understanding why you feel this way, but on helping you actually get some relief from it in your day-to-day life.

My approach is practical, grounded, and focused on helping you get unstuck in real time—not just talking about what’s hard, but changing how you move through it.

I use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and strengths-based strategies, but I don’t treat those as the “point” of therapy. They’re tools we use to help you notice patterns like spiraling thoughts, emotional overload, avoidance, or shutdown, and then start responding to them in ways that feel more manageable and less exhausting.

A big part of the work is helping you recognize where you’re pushing through versus where you actually need support, structure, or a different way of responding to stress. Over time, therapy becomes less about trying to “figure yourself out” and more about building a steadier internal baseline so life doesn’t feel like something you’re constantly bracing for.

In the beginning, we’ll focus on what’s been feeling most overwhelming or hardest to manage lately. You don’t need to organize it perfectly or know where to start—we’ll sort through it together.

Many clients come in feeling like their thoughts don’t turn off, their energy feels depleted, or they’re constantly behind emotionally even when they’re doing everything they can to cope. Over time, the work often shifts from feeling reactive and overwhelmed to feeling more steady, more clear, and more able to respond instead of just react.

The goal is not to turn you into a different person—it’s to help life feel less heavy and more manageable in real, lived ways.