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Laura A. Munger, LMSW

Laura A. Munger, LMSW

For as long as I can remember, I have been deeply committed to a comprehensive approach to overall wellness: the cohesion of mind, body, and spirit.

Through the use of CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and Mindfulness, my therapy approach focuses on helping my clients identify emotional triggers, negative thought patterns, and counterproductive behaviors that reduce their ability to cope with difficult situations.

Therefore, this reduces their quality of life by leading to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and other mood and behavioral issues. Life gets hard sometimes and we face many challenges and transitions that are hard to work through on our own.

I assist my clients in developing a wide range of strategies that will assist them with being able to talk about and process their feelings, reframe their negative thoughts, interrupt unhealthy patterns, and empower them to take control of their lives again.

In the search for my clients' best selves, the strategies they will learn to employ will help them experience all that life has to offer. This will also internalize the belief that no matter how many times we might fall and no matter how badly we may feel, we will always have the capability to RISE and live a happy, meaningful, and fulfilled life.

Call Rise Counseling Services today to learn more.

Experience:

I received my Bachelors in Psychology from the University of Michigan (Class of 1988) and went on to receive my Masters in Social Work from the University of Michigan (Class of 1990). Since that time, I have had a diverse career. I started my career as a family therapist and treatment coordinator at Boysville of Michigan, which was a medium security campus for adjudicated teens. I then transitioned to the inpatient psychiatric setting, which led me to an inpatient medical setting. I spent the next 17 years of my career in various healthcare settings.


Using my clinical skills to empower people to get through medical events in their lives was work that I loved and further solidified my commitment to the mind-body-spirit connections by recognizing that our physical, emotional, and spiritual states are all interwoven and any one of them has the potential to improve or worsen any of the other parts. In addition, my work with couples and families allowed me to help the people surrounding the patient.


I spent some time in private practice working specifically with depression, anxiety, grief and loss, body image issues, and weight issues through a variety of interventions: physical exercise, yoga, nutrition, and mental health therapy. As a result of this work, I was then recruited to the University of Michigan Health Systems Comprehensive Cancer Center where I eventually became the Social Work Coordinator.


Therapy delivery included assistance with treatment decisions, adjustment to disease, body image issues, grief and loss, depression, anxiety, and survivorship. This work also afforded me opportunities to work as a field instructor to the University of Michigan's School of Social Work, as well as, many speaking engagements and guest lecturing at various workshops and universities on the subject of survivorship, psychosocial considerations of a person with cancer, and compassion fatigue.


This extensive body of work has strengthened my skill and commitment to the evidence-based approaches of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Mindfulness Based Therapy. These modalities are not only approaches that I am deeply passionate about but have also seen the efficacy of and, therefore, have made this the cornerstone of my practice.