MELISSA TOLSON, LSW

Melissa Tolson (pronouns: she/her) is a licensed social worker who works with children, adolescents, adults, and families. Her specialty areas include: trauma, anxiety, depression, foster, adoption, and caregiving support. She is passionate about integrating creativity and positive psychology into her counseling practice, as well as treatment approaches that are evidence-based and uniquely tailored to each client.

Melissa believes in life-long learning and has a passion for helping others. She originally began her career path as a teacher with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toledo, and found her love of working with her students and their caregivers. Along the way, she learned more about counseling children and youth and pursued a master’s degree in social work from Case Western Reserve University.

Prior to private practice, Melissa has worked as a clinical case manager in foster and adoption.

There, she developed her passion for working with families and their youth. She gained experience working with children and youth that have experienced multiple types of traumas and had the opportunity of helping them through the healing process. Her work during this time included working with the caregivers of these youth and helping them understand trauma and its effects.

Her approach to counseling is relational, emotion-focused, and holistic. She believes in treating the whole person and that personal growth is the result of empowering connections that are rooted in safety, authenticity, vulnerability, and mutual respect. She puts a high value on the therapeutic partnership and believes that the client is the expert. She uses a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), narrative therapy, mindfulness-based practices, and is currently working towards her licensure in trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT).

Her strengths include: humor, kindness, empathy, love of learning, adaptability, social intelligence, and the ability to see the bigger picture in life.