Wellness Matters Montana providers have varied backgrounds and life experiences that contribute to supporting clients with a myriad of real world challenges:
Carolyn Hamilton, MA
Contract Therapist/Connections Mental Health, LLC
Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (Montana)
Licensed Professional Counselor (Minnesota)
Do you struggle to find hope and purpose in your day-to-day life?
Is life becoming hard and overwhelming? Are you dealing with difficult change? Do you wonder if your relationships could be better? Healthier? Are you are questioning if there is hope for change? I will work with you to discover hope.
I approach therapy by trying to understand your perspective.
Everyone has unique experiences and needs that influence how we perceive and respond to life events. My role is to understand your experience and how it is currently impacting you. Together we will work to discover the best way for you to manage your life’s challenges.
I will work with you in discovering and understanding how you relate to yourself and others. Then, we will identify destructive thought processes that may be affecting your emotions and behaviors. Together we will work on challenging and changing those patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
My specialties include:
- Social skills
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Healthy relationships
- Parenting support
- Faith issues
My background:
I have experience working with clients from the age of 4 and into later adulthood. My past work experience includes 12 years of providing support and counseling services to students pre-K through 12th grade at a rural public school.
I have also provided support to administrators,teachers, parents, guardians, and grandparents. I have worked with students that experienced the death of a family member by suicide and have been active in suicide prevention efforts. My passion is to help people overcome hardship and discover hope. I can offer an empathetic, compassionate approach that views you as a unique person, not a problem to be solved.
My education and licensure:
I have a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Montana (1997) and an Master of Arts in Professional Counseling (2021) from Liberty University. My master’s program provided training to integrate matters of therapy, spirituality and faith. I am also a certified trainer with the QPR (question, persuade, refer) suicide prevention program.
I provide mental health services to clients in both Montana and Minnesota. I am a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in Montana and a Licensed Professional Counselor in Minnesota.
Faith is an important part of my life:
I know that life can be hard and I have found my Christian faith to be a foundation I can turn to for comfort and help during difficult times. If interested, I can integrate faith into my therapeutic approach for those desiring a faith-based approach to counseling.
I provide telehealth (i.e., on-line) appointments:
I provide services using a secure and easy to use telehealth platform accessed on a smart phone, computer or tablet. Advances in technology have made mental health services more accessible (appointments can be attended from the comfort of your home, office, or even your car) and less time consuming (travel time to and from appointments). Though telehealth is different from meeting face-to-face, it is an effective mode of therapy.
I look forward to working with you to help manage life challenges and discover hope.
Contact Wellness Matters for a free 15-minute telephonic consultation or to make an appointment:
Tap here to call Wellness Matters LLC for more information (218) 255-3321
Tap here to request an appointment online
Emily Pierson, MEd
Contract Therapist/Pierson Mental Health Services LLC
Licensed Professional Counselor (Minnesota)
Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (Montana)
Are you struggling to adapt to life changes?
Are you finding that life is throwing you a curve ball? Have you noticed that you have more difficulty in navigating life transitions? Have you noticed more signs of stress, anxiety, or depression? Do you feel “I should just be able to handle this?” Are you worried that things are not getting better?
Whether life changes are expected or unexpected, they can be overwhelming.
Pile them on top of day-to-day stressors and they can seem insurmountable. Stress and disrupted routines sometimes prohibit you from living a normal, healthy life. I know where you are coming from. Unwelcome changes are often overwhelming and distressing.
I understand the difficulties of managing life transitions.
I want to help you find a way to create a happy and fulfilling life. Learning healthy ways to manage life transitions and improve depression, anxiety, stress, relationship concerns, and self-esteem can transform life’s trajectory.
I have a passion for helping teens, college-age students, and adults find ways to live a healthy, fulfilling life.
Having worked in a school setting as a mental health provider in a Comprehensive School and Community Therapy (CSCT) setting in Montana, I have seen and can empathize with the unique challenges faced by teachers and other educational professionals. In transitioning to working in a private clinic, I have brought that experience with me.
I have experience working with clients on a variety of concerns including:
- anxiety
- depression
- grief and loss
- trauma
- healthy relationships/friendships
- coping skills
- communicating
- self-esteem
- life transitions
I believe that taking a holistic approach is important.
No two people are exactly the same. Our needs differ. How we view and process daily events differ. We all have different family networks, support systems, backgrounds, learning styles, and strengths. I take all of this into consideration and collaborate with clients to identify best treatment methods.
I provide individual services using a telehealth platform.
While it differs from traditional face-to-face sessions, telehealth negates the time and resources it takes to commute and can be accessed from the comfort of your home or private office.
Trauma Treatment:
Some traumatic events stick with us. When you think about these moments, they may feel as if they are happening ‘right now’, causing your body to have an adverse or exaggerated reaction. Examples can include increased heart rate, shakiness, or even a “fight, flight or freeze” response. When this type of response happens, it can mean that your brain has stored unprocessed memories, events, and information in an unhealthy way.
Unprocessed memories may lead to negative thoughts.
You think that you are not good enough, unlovable, or unsafe in everyday situations. In turn, this can lead to feelings of stress, anxiousness, depression, and more.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy:
EMDR helps your brain process these memories in a healthier, more adaptive realistic way. EMDR uses bilateral (i.e., both sides of the body) stimulation through eye movements or tapping to access these memories and reprocess them appropriately.
In 2022, I completed my basic training course in Somatic and Attachment Focused EMDR with the Personal Transformation Institute. This approach focuses on how early attachment patterns and body responses affect a person’s trauma response. I have found EMDR techniques to be effective in reprocessing negative experiences and traumas. It’s not always easy to process grief, sadness, hurt, anger, embarrassment, and other hard emotions. I can walk this journey with you and help you get back to being your best self!
My Background:
I was born and raised in Alaska. I earned my B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Sports Management from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in 2014. After attending UAF for my Masters of Education (MEd) degree in School Counseling, I moved to Montana. I did internships at Hellgate High School in Missoula and at Sheridan School district in Sheridan. After graduation in 2017, I worked as a CSCT therapist in Sheridan, MT for four years. I have been in private practice since the fall of 2021 and have loved the transition. I am a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) in Montana and am a Licensed Professional Counselor in Minnesota. When not working with clients, I enjoy fishing, being outdoors, and spending time with my two children, husband dog, and 16 chickens. I look forward to connecting with you.
Intake Coordinator and Billing Specialist
I also handle all of the intake coordination and billing services for Montana clients.
Contact Wellness Matters for a free 15-minute telephonic consultation or to make an appointment:
Tap here to call Wellness Matters LLC for more information (218) 255-3321
Tap here to request an appointment online
Rita Anderson, MA
Therapist and Sole Owner of Wellness Matters LLC
Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor
Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor
In 2019, I founded Wellness Matters LLC in Park Rapids, MN, a small community in northern Minnesota. In 2024, we contracted with numerous Montana-based health insurance companies so that our Montana-based therapists could start providing mental health services to Montana clients.
“Health is a state of body. Wellness is a state of being.” J. Stanford
Vision:
To support an integrative approach for improving the overall health and wellness of our clients and ourselves.
Mission:
To optimize wellness in people who:
- want anonymity when accessing services
- prefer services be delivered in a convenient manner (i.e., telehealth appointments)
- are struggling adjusting to or effectively managing parenting, school issues, work problems, relationship concerns, spiritual conflict, caregiver burnout, or death of a loved one
- “know what to do” but struggle with implementing health supporting behaviors
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Lao Tzu
Core Values and Culture:
Wellness Matters staff honor “client as the expert” throughout the therapeutic process. We work collaboratively with clients.
Social Media and Internet Guidelines:
This section outlines Wellness Matters’ practices related to the use of Internet and Social Media.
- We believe that it is important that clients and prospective clients know how Wellness Matters staff conduct ourselves as mental health professionals while using the Internet and Social Media.
- These guidelines are in place in order to promote protection of client confidentiality.
- These guidelines help to protect our therapeutic relationships with clients so that they remain intact and in accordance with ethical guidelines.
If you have any questions about our Internet and Social Media guidelines, we encourage you to bring them up when we meet. As new technology develops and the Internet changes, there may be times when we need to update these guidelines. If we do so, we will notify clients of any changes.
Friending
Wellness Matters staff do not accept friend or contact requests from current on any social networking site (Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, etc.) as outlined by the American Counseling Association guidelines.
Fanning
You are welcome to view our Facebook pages and read or share posted articles; however, we do not accept clients as fans of our Facebook pages. We believe having clients as Facebook fans creates a greater likelihood of compromised client confidentiality, and we feel it is best to be explicit to all who may view our list of fans to know that they will not find client names on that list.
Following
We have blogs on our website. We have no expectation that clients will want to or need to follow the blog.
Please note that we will not follow clients on twitter feeds. We may follow other health professionals on Twitter. If there are things from your online life that you wish to share with us, please bring them into our sessions where we can view and explore them together during the therapy session.
Interacting
We recommend against using SMS (mobile phone text messaging) or messaging on social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, or LinkedIn to contact Wellness Matters staff as these sites are not secure and we may not read these messages in a timely fashion. Wellness Matters’ clients have access to a HIPPA secure messaging system through their client account – it is recommended that clients use this messaging system to contact Wellness Matters’ therapists.
Email/Texts
If you choose to communicate with Wellness Matters staff by email, please be aware that all emails and/or texts are likely retained in the logs of Internet service providers or telephone companies. While it is unlikely that someone will be looking at these logs, they are, in theory, available to be read by the system administrator(s). Wellness Matters’ clients have access to a HIPPA secure messaging system through their client portal (i.e., also known as the “client account”). We encourage and recommend clients use this messaging system to contact Wellness Matters’ therapists. You should also know that any emails/texts received from clients and any responses become a part of the client legal medical record.