Michelle Elijah

Michelle believes that a successful therapeutic relationship begins with establishing a warm, supportive, and safe space for her clients to connect and feel genuinely seen and heard. Michelle uses a holistic and relational approach that encourages her clients to be active participants in their own growth and healing. She helps empower her clients to improve their relationships with themselves in order to live a life that feels full and authentic.

Michelle works with teens and adults on issues related to anxiety, panic/phobias, life transitions, relationships, managing stress, grief/loss, and self-esteem. Michelle also works with couples and is Gottman Level 1 certified. Through the use of evidence-based treatment modalities and mindfulness techniques, Michelle helps clients navigate, process, and make meaningful change when dealing with life’s difficult moments.

Prior to completing her Masters Degree in Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Michelle worked as a graphic designer. She is also a textile artist and deeply understands the cathartic and grounding quality that creative expression can foster. She enjoys working to nurture this in her clients as an alternative way to communicate or heal from trauma. She has been practicing breath-work and yoga for more than a decade, and believes that meditation and movement therapy can also be an effective way to reconnect to the physical self and work through emotional pain that gets stored in the body over time.

In her spare time, Michelle can be found hanging out with her husband and young son, weaving on her loom, going for aimless walks with her dog, reading too many books at once, and going to estate sales.