Helen Jessup Murray, Licensed Mental Health Counselor

Helen Murray, Therapist, Vero Beach Florida Licensed in Florida as a Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), Certified as an Imago Relationship Therapist, and as a Coaching Counselor, change begins with what I’ve identified as a “whole person” world view.

Raised in Asian countries six of the first twelve years of my life, arriving in Orlando, FL at the beginning of middle school, I discovered clues for living, first by observing… then, by doing. Years later, as a therapist, I realized that this foundation for living was part of the environment of emotional safety. Once felt, then accepted, this environment becomes the foundation for change. This experience of change in therapy for one’s life – or “Life as Therapy”; once actualized, is a blueprint for living. Therapy often begins in crisis…but crisis stabilization is not enough…the blueprint is just the beginning.

Client Centered Therapy, and the environment I’ve described above, is part of the therapeutic relationship for one-on-one counseling, couples and family therapy, and group therapy offered at my Center. Certified in Imago Relationship Therapy, a therapy for couples, Imago also describes my template for communication as a Coaching Counselor. For therapy to be effective, commitment to the process of change is necessary. In relationship, commitment is the language of communication, ultimately translating problems into solutions. Solution-focused interventions, coupled with commitment to the therapeutic process, acts as the catalyst for therapeutic theory to become a conscious living practice, one solution, one action, at a time.

How and where, and with whom you grow up with, matters, often realized in crisis. The “problems” that bring you to therapy often are symptoms …not the underlying cause. This start point in therapy can lead to what needs changing, but it takes time…and action. To stabilize, first through crisis, then through new ways of living, solutions are how therapy becomes part of a plan for living--Life as Therapy. My role as a Coaching Counselor is to teach new skills one learns… by doing. AWARENESS (learning) + ACTION (behavior) is actualized into Personal Power! Make sense? Clarity comes through doing, change occurs by doing.

Having a multi-cultural upbringing assisted my calling in therapy; first as an Addictions Counselor in 1986, and throughout my education and training in Counseling Psychology from Rollins College, in Winter Park, FL. Licensed in Mental Health Counseling since 1991, I’m aware I offer my part of the Therapy as Life formula: the foundational safety (Awareness) portion. This formula for change is not only for those who need therapy, but for those who WANT Life as Therapy; those that break open, and break through…by Action.