Janelle Butler , LMHC

Janelle Butler is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) with nine years of experience helping people navigate stress, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, addictions, and issues common to women such as body image and intimacy-related concerns. She also supports people facing grief, trauma and abuse, parenting strains, career stress, and life transitions. Janelle works from a practical, compassionate stance and focuses on small, doable steps that reduce distress and build resilience.

Her style is warm and straightforward. She listens closely and helps people name patterns that keep them stuck. From there she helps clients test new behaviors and perspectives that feel more manageable. Sessions aim to balance acceptance of hard feelings with actions that move life forward.

Janelle draws on several evidence-based approaches including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), attachment-based ideas, and a client-centered way of relating. She adapts methods to fit each person’s needs rather than following a single script.

She practiced for years in community mental health and has experience with a wide variety of backgrounds and concerns. That background informs her focus on practical skills, communication problems, commitment issues, and coping with chronic illness or caregiving stress.

Janelle offers sessions in English and American Sign Language and serves clients in Washington and beyond. She welcomes conversations about challenges like abandonment, adoption and foster care issues, dissociation, eating and sleeping problems, and compassion fatigue.

Therapeutic approaches you can use online

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting driven by them, then choose actions that match personal values. It can be useful for anxiety, depression, and coping with life changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing them with practical experiments to change mood and behavior, which can help with anxiety, depression, and sleep or eating concerns. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) teaches concrete skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness, which can be helpful for strong mood swings, anger, and relationship stress.

Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will discuss goals and preferences, try methods that fit the issue at hand, and adjust plans based on how things are going. Clients and the therapist work together to decide which strategies feel most useful and realistic for day-to-day life.

Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to keep therapy flexible. Video is good for deeper conversation and reading nonverbal cues, phone can be easier when bandwidth is limited, live chat and messaging work for brief check-ins or skill practice between sessions. These options make it easier to fit sessions into work, caregiving, or medical schedules and to keep momentum between meetings.