Deborah Parker

About Deborah

My approach

My approach is collaborative, compassionate, and informed by how trauma can affect emotions, behavior, and relationships. We explore experiences and what you want from therapy. We explore patterns, ways to manage difficult emotions, and work on communication and boundaries. I offer support and honest feedback while respecting your pace, values, and choices.

About me

I am a Licensed Professional Counselor and founder of ClearMind PLLC. My passion is trauma and how it impacts the brain, body, and behaviors. I help clients explore how past trauma affects current daily living and relationships.

More background

a Licensed Professional Counselor and founder of ClearMind PLLC. I work with adolescents and adults who are navigating trauma, anxiety, depression, family conflict, and stressful life changes. My goal is to offer a space where you can speak honestly, feel understood, and begin making changes that matter to you.

You may be carrying experiences that continue to affect how you feel about yourself, respond to stress, or connect with other people. Perhaps you find yourself worrying constantly, feeling emotionally overwhelmed, struggling to set boundaries, or repeating relationship patterns you want to change. You may also have difficulty putting your experience into words. We can begin wherever you are.

My approach is compassionate, collaborative, and attentive to the effects of trauma. I take time to understand your history, relationships, strengths, and current circumstances. Together, we explore how past experiences may influence present reactions while developing practical ways to manage everyday challenges. Depending on your needs, our work may include recognizing emotional triggers, expanding coping skills, communicating more clearly, setting boundaries, and responding to yourself with greater understanding.

My professional development includes extensive PhD-level coursework in counseling psychology, and I am currently studying trauma and disaster relief. This academic work deepens my understanding of how crises and traumatic experiences affect individuals, families, and communities. It also informs my interest in recovery, resilience, and the ways people rebuild safety and meaning after significant disruption. I bring an ongoing commitment to learning and thoughtful clinical practice to my work as an LPC.

My clinical experience includes providing individual therapy to adolescents in therapeutic group homes, including young people transitioning from residential treatment. This work has reinforced the importance of looking beyond behavior to understand a person’s emotional needs, relationships, and experiences. Progress in one setting does not always translate easily into another. I value helping clients develop skills they can use in daily life and considering how their environments can support lasting change.

In my work with adults, I help clients explore concerns such as difficult family dynamics, painful past experiences, anxiety, depression, and the stress of changing roles or relationships. We may examine how early experiences shaped your expectations of yourself and others, including beliefs about responsibility, trust, conflict, and whether your own needs are allowed to matter. Therapy can provide room to reconsider those beliefs and practice different ways of responding.

I believe meaningful therapy makes room for both understanding and action. Sometimes you need space to process something painful. At other times, you may want help preparing for a difficult conversation, managing an intense emotion, or deciding where to set a boundary. We will work together to identify your priorities and revisit them as your needs change.

You can expect warmth, honest feedback, and respect for your choices. I welcome questions about the process and feedback about what is or is not helping. Your cultural background, personal values, and lived experiences are important parts of our work.

Seeking support does not require knowing exactly what to say or having a clear plan. Whether you are ready to explore longstanding concerns or simply need help understanding what feels difficult right now, we can start there.

Specialties

Types of therapy

Who Deborah works with

Ages

Preteens (11-13), Teens (14-19), Adults

Languages

English

Education and training

Master of Arts in Counseling & Human Relations 2008

PhD in Counseling Psychology 2015

Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling 2022

PhD in Trauma & Disaster Relief pending 2027

Certifications

Deep Brain Reorientation (DBR)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

Crisis Intervention MMPI-3 Administration and Scoring (University of Minnesota Press)

Treatment Non-Adherence in Mood & Psychotic Disorders

Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation (MID)

Family Mediation Certification – Virginia 40-hour pre-appointment education and training for custody evaluators provided by the Ohio Supreme Court 21 hours clinical supervision training Brainspotting