Rachael Lewis, MA, LAPC (she/they)

Associate Professional Counselor  ·  Supervised by Chad Husted, LPC, CPCS

You can usually tell what everyone else needs from you. What you want is harder to locate, and saying it out loud feels like something you’d have to apologize for afterward. So you go along, and then you replay the conversation for three days.

Rachael works with people in that spot. She’s warm, curious, and funny in session, and she asks more than she tells — mostly the questions you’ve been circling for months and answering too quickly. Then it gets practical. She believes people change when they’re ready to take small steps, so you’ll leave with one, and you’ll talk about how it went.

Much of her work is with relationships and boundaries: difficulty being assertive, trouble trusting people or trusting them too fast, the friendship or family relationship that keeps costing more than it gives, and the exes and old versions of yourself you can’t quite put down. Rachael helps you get clear on what you actually want from the people in your life — and what you’re no longer willing to accept.

She also works closely with identity, culture, and context. Who you are isn’t formed in a vacuum. Race, gender, sexuality, family expectation, and the assumptions of the rooms you move through all shape what you were allowed to want. Rachael works with Black women, LGBTQ+ clients, and anyone sorting out which parts of their identity are theirs and which were assigned. This is the work she cares most about.

With college students and young adults — emerging adults, graduate students, and people early in their careers — she supports anxiety, depression, stress, and the pressure of building a life while everyone around you seems to have the manual. Rachael trained in a university counseling center and knows this stage of life from the inside of it.

Her approach is integrative, drawing from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), alongside strengths-based work. She emphasizes radical acceptance, self-compassion, and getting clear on your values so your choices can follow them. She is known for creative interventions and for making complicated ideas land simply.

Rachael earned a BS in Psychology from Georgia Southern University and an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Rowan University. She has worked in university counseling, crisis and emergency assessment, school-based counseling, and outpatient practice.

Outside of work, Rachael is at pop culture and anime conventions, in the gym or out on a trail, or at the movies. She’d want you to know that — finding something in common with your therapist matters, and it’s something she looks for too.