Shirley Williams , LCSW, CSW

Shirley Williams is a Colorado-based licensed clinical social worker with 35 years of experience helping people navigate relationship, family, trauma, grief, and life transition challenges. She holds LCSW and CSW credentials - LCSW meaning Licensed Clinical Social Worker and CSW indicating state social work licensure - and brings a long history of clinical training and practice to her work.

Raised in Michigan, she earned a BA in Psychology and a Master of Social Work from Wayne State University and then completed a two-year Intensive Family Therapy program at the Ann Arbor Center for the Family during an important period in the development of family systems approaches. Over the years she has pursued many advanced trainings that inform a flexible, evidence-informed practice.

Her clinical experience spans health care, hospice, schools, foster care and adoption services, pregnancy support, and work with people with disabilities and their caregivers, including those who care for animals. In 2000 she completed a 1000-hour massage therapy program at the Boulder College of Massage Therapy and went on to national certification and Colorado licensure in massage and bodywork, which supports a somatic perspective in her therapeutic work.

Shirley integrates trauma-sensitive methods, including EMDR and The Flash Technique, and often introduces expressive modalities such as sound, dance and movement, and clay work. She approaches each person with curiosity and a commitment to helping them discover practical, meaningful ways to heal and grow.

Therapeutic Approaches and Online Care

Shirley Williams uses several trauma-informed approaches that translate well to online work. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR, helps people process distressing memories and reduce the intensity of traumatic reactions by guiding adaptive information processing in structured phases. Narrative Therapy invites clients to explore and reframe the stories they tell about themselves and their relationships, helping them find new meanings and possibilities beyond problem-focused narratives. Trauma-Focused Therapy concentrates on understanding how trauma shapes thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and offers targeted strategies to restore functioning and resilience.

Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. Shirley works with each person to identify goals, preferences, and what feels most tolerable and useful, adjusting methods over time to meet changing needs and pace.

Online therapy with Shirley is offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to provide flexibility for different schedules and comfort levels. These options make it easier to access consistent support without travel, allow continuity of care during life transitions, and let people choose the format that best fits their daily routines while working with licensed professionals and therapists focused on trauma-informed healing.