Portland Therapy Center
Mitchell West

Mitchell West

Professional Counselor Associate

MA

Supervisor: Fred Kane, LPC

Has something completely shaken your foundation? Feeling like your whole life is changing against your will is confusing. I can help.

Client Status

accepting clients

Contact

Email Website

At a Glance

Me

Rate: $130

Practicing Since: 2023

Services

  • Individual
  • Relationship

Insurances Accepted

  • Out of Pocket
  • Out of Network
  • Aetna
  • Anthem
  • Cigna
  • Optum
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My Ideal Client

I'm best able to help those who feel like everything is suddenly uprooting and they feel helpless to address it. For some people, they've had a faith crisis that makes them question the very core of their identity. For others, they went through something traumatic and they feel like their mind and body won't let them move on. And for some, their marriage is suddenly falling apart, and they desperately want to save it but feel like they can't figure out how.

My Background and Approach

My education and experience are directly tied to what I treat, meaning I'm more familiar with how to help you. Prior to graduate school, my studies were largely on family and marital dynamics, and I am married with several children of my own. My graduate studies were spent at Harvard Divinity School and Brigham Young University, where—while battling my own faith crisis and facing a clinically traumatic event—I learned how to provide both mental and spiritual counseling. I have further refined that through work with those facing traumatic events and by working on an additional clinical degree in counseling. To help you best, I use established, evidence-based practices. We work within your framework rather than me imposing mine on you, and we collaboratively get you to where you want to be, whether that's where you used to be or whether it's somewhere new. You are the most important person in therapy, so I work less as a teacher and more as a guide to honor your needs and wishes.

My Values as a Therapist

My values as a person have little place in the therapeutic process. Perhaps that's a little on the nose, but my personal values are not my therapeutic values. My core values as a therapist are all about your improvement and welfare, and can be embodied in these principles: 1) We work within your framework and paradigm. 2) Your personal values are central to the process. 3) You know yourself better than I ever could. 4) We collaborate to help you achieve your goals, or as close as you can get to them. 5) We are honest with each other and work to solve any personal issues that might arise. I became a counselor not to impose personal values or because of personal identity, but because of my own experiences with mental health and spiritual challenges and because of the fulfillment I find helping others on their own journey. My core value as a therapist is to always put your needs first.

Techniques I Use

Issues I Treat

Specialties

  • Spirituality External link

    I originally studied as a chaplain at Harvard, where I gained insight into the interactions between daily life and our religious and spiritual identities. Many counselors specializing in spirituality are esoteric and mystical, but my education and experience means I can work with you to integrate your own religious or spiritual identity into clinical sessions while utilizing effective, validated therapeutic approaches.

  • Parenting External link

    My education in family systems, parenting research, and marital dynamics all give me a foundation to help guide you with your parenting struggles. My experience raising my children give me that extra insight into the open secret of parenting: that only parents understand what it's like. If parenting help is one of your biggest needs, we'll work together to better understand what might be causing hang-ups and what can (and what can't) be done about it.

  • PTSD External link

    I've experienced two events significant enough to lead to my own PTSD diagnosis in each case, and I've worked for several years with teenagers and adults who have battled their own traumatic disruptions. People I have helped through PTSD have experienced wrongful arrest and false imprisonment, sexual assault, neglect and abuse as children, had their life threatened, and many other events, and I have worked alongside first responders and military (though I was a civilian) in the past.

Contact Mitchell

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