LaVerne Merritt-Morrison, LMHC

LaVerne Merritt-Morrison is a licensed mental health counselor with three decades of clinical work. She trained in clinical counseling and addiction care and brings years of hands-on experience to sessions. Her style is direct, warm, and focused on practical steps. She often pairs motivational interviewing with cognitive behavioral therapy while keeping the person's needs central.

Clients can expect simple, goal-oriented conversations. Sessions look at current problems and build small, manageable skills to cope better. LaVerne pays attention to how behavior, thoughts, and feelings connect and helps people test new ways of handling stress and cravings.

Her background includes long-term work with substance use concerns and people who face co-occurring mental health issues. She has experience with lifelong patterns such as attachment concerns, codependency, and personality difficulties. This helps when struggles involve long-standing relationship pain or repeated setbacks.

LaVerne also supports people dealing with grief, shame, isolation, and identity questions. She has worked with issues related to HIV and AIDS and other health-related life changes. Her years in transitional housing added practical insight into day-to-day barriers people face.

Sessions are tailored to each person's goals. She listens first, then helps create realistic steps forward. The approach aims to restore stability and build skills people can use after therapy ends.

How LaVerne’s approaches fit online therapy

Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and responding to each person's needs. It emphasizes empathy and working at the person's pace to build trust and clarify goals. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at the links between thoughts, feelings, and behavior and teaches practical skills to change unhelpful patterns; it works well for anxiety, depression, panic, and many daily struggles. Motivational Interviewing helps people find personal reasons to change and builds commitment when someone feels stuck, especially around substance use or behavior change.

Finding the right approach is part of the process. The therapist will work together with the client to choose and adjust methods based on the person's goals, concerns, and comfort. Sessions can combine elements from these approaches so the plan fits the individual's situation.

Online therapy offers practical flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when more connection is helpful. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can be a simpler check-in. Live chat and text-based messaging make brief check-ins or step-by-step skill practice easier between longer sessions. These options help people fit therapy around work, caregiving, and daily life while keeping a consistent course of support.