Shirley Butler , LCSW

Shirley Butler is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 23 years in mental health care. She practices from Montana and brings experience from community mental health, Tribal behavioral health, and private practice. Her work centers on supporting people through stress, anxiety, trauma, depression, relationship struggles, and women's issues.

She earned a Bachelor degree in Human Services Rehabilitation from Salish Kootenai College and a Master of Social Work from Walla Walla University. After graduate school she completed 3,000 supervised clinical hours before obtaining her clinical license as an LCSW. Her background includes crisis on-call work and in-office therapy across diverse cultural settings.

Her approach begins by building rapport and trust with each person. She collaborates with clients to create a treatment plan that fits their needs and goals. She values hearing each person's story as part of healing and change.

Shirley uses a mix of approaches to match the person in front of her. She draws on attachment-focused ideas to look at close relationships, client-centered listening to follow what matters most to the client, cognitive behavioral techniques for thinking and behavior patterns, and elements of emotion-focused and dialectical strategies when intense feelings arise.

She also uses Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, often when past events continue to cause distress. Sessions tend to be practical and paced to the client's needs, with an emphasis on clear steps and coping strategies.

Approaches for online care and how they help

Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early and current relationships shape emotions and behavior. Online sessions using this lens often focus on patterns in close relationships and on building safer ways to connect with others.

Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes listening and following what matters most to the client. Through gentle, nonjudgmental conversation a therapist helps clarify goals and supports the client's own problem solving and personal growth.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying and shifting thought and behavior patterns that keep problems going. In online work CBT often includes practical exercises and strategies to try between sessions to reduce anxiety or lift mood.

Finding the right approach is part of the process. The therapist will work collaboratively to choose methods that match a person's needs, goals, and preferences, and will adjust the plan as progress is made.

Online therapy offers flexibility in how sessions happen. Video calls allow face-to-face interaction and visual cues, phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited, live chat provides a shorter check-in option, and text messaging supports ongoing reflection between meetings. These formats make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life and to keep continuity when schedules or locations change.