Before becoming a therapist, Elise Nance worked in a variety of professional care settings to include a school, private childcare, and as a missionary in Japan, which sparked her interest in the field of mental health and the need to spread and provide resources to underserved populations and anyone in need of mental health services. She graduated with a B.S. in Early Childhood Education and is currently a graduate student completing her M.A. in Clinical Counseling. Over the course of Elise’s prior jobs, she gained expertise in many intricate issues pertaining to family and education based systems, as well as child development, communication, and skill acquisition for all ages. During that time, she gained expertise in conflict resolution, family systems, issues specific to youth and young adulthood, and personal identity formation. These skills have provided an excellent foundation for the therapy she provides today.
Intervention Style: Elise is passionate about helping people to understand that they are not meant to walk through their struggles alone. She believes there is hope for everyone who seeks to find it, and that pursuing therapy is an excellent step in that journey. She seeks to empower and support all who take that step. Elise understands that there is a special balance to be discovered between strong, dependable relationships in one’s life and a healthy sense of autonomy and self-confidence. She cares deeply about the development of the therapeutic alliance between counselor and client, understanding that a nonjudgmental and empathetic atmosphere is integral to the journey of healing and growth that transcends far beyond the therapy room. Most importantly, Elise is passionate about helping clients to identify and utilize the strengths within themselves as well as within the systems and cultures they are a part of in a way that allows them to understand and embrace their worth and purpose in life. Elise’s goal as a counselor is not just to address clients’ symptoms, but to explore the possible roots of the issues they are seeking help for. She believes this is an important component to lasting healing and genuine growth.
Therapy: Elise provides therapy to children, teens, and adults, with a special interest in children/teens, couples, and third culture kids; she enjoys working with people with all presenting problems. In therapy, her style is warm and non-judgmental. She takes a strengths-based, person-centered approach, helping people create positive change and meet their goals. She approaches her therapeutic work with compassion and is guided by evidence-informed practices, integrating Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) into her work. Elise recognizes that seeking support takes strength and healing is a journey that looks different for everyone and does not have to be pursued alone; she strives to create a safe and supportive environment for all ages to navigate through these challenges together. As a former education and childcare professional, in her work with children she believes strongly in early interventions and meeting the child where they are by considering the developmental level and life stage of the individual. She is very skilled at coming up with creative ways to help children develop new strengths to assist with their presenting concern. With adolescents specifically, Elise understands the unique challenges and varying developmental stages of concern, including autonomy, physical and emotional changes, and strained parent-teen relationships. She works with the adolescent to identify the area(s) of focus, as well as considering systems at large, such as parents, educational institutions, and social groups. With clients of all ages, Elise provides therapy for a broad array of issues, such as depression, general anxiety, social anxiety, school anxiety and refusal, sibling rivalry, parent-child relationship rifts, oppositional behavior, conduct issues, academic struggles, learning differences, attention deficit, autism spectrum, healthy lifestyle, couples counseling, relational conflict, and supportive therapy for life changes such as moving or divorce. Elise believes healing cannot happen without an understanding of the social and environmental factors that affect the individual, and thus looks at how these areas uniquely impact each client she works with in therapy.
Personal: Elise is a North Carolina native. In her free time she enjoys cooking, dancing, working out, and spending time with friends.