Mary Carol Damon is a Provisionally Licensed Professional Counselor with a Master of Arts in Counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS. She has completed all the educational requirements for state licensure and is working to complete the requirements for counseling experience under the supervision of Ashley Smith, LPC-S, Registered Play Therapist.

In counseling, Mary Carol seeks to provide a collaborative, empathetic, and safe environment where clients can work through their problems and toward their goals by accessing their own inner resources and gaining skills including emotional awareness and regulation, self-compassion, communication, and self-understanding. She uses an array of theoretical approaches and seeks to treat each child, teen, adult, or couple with the evidenced-based model that best suits their personality, needs, and developmental level.

Mary Carol is passionate about working with children, teens, adults, and couples.

Children and Teens

With children (as young as 4 years old), Mary Carol uses a combination of nondirective and directive play based therapy approaches suited to their developmental level, needs, and personality. Using toys, she provides a safe environment for children to communicate through a child’s language: play. She also uses play as an opportunity to help children gain skills such as empathy, emotional awareness and regulation, and impulse control.

As an older child or young teen’s ability to process using verbal language grows, they move from play based therapy into talk-based therapy. With teens, Mary Carol’s goal is to guide them through making sense of what is going on inside and around them as they continue to develop in their sense of identity, relationships, emotional regulation, and communication.

Adults

With adults, Mary Carol sees the goal of counseling as helping the individual pinpoint and work toward their individual goals by helping them find and access their own inner resources to enhance their relationship with themselves and their relationship with others.

Couples

Mary Carol is trained in Gottman Level 1 and in Prepare and Enrich Assessment for Premarital Couples. She seeks to provide a safe environment for couples to explore their relationship dynamics and attachment styles, develop constructive communication skills, and grow in both self-understanding and understanding of one another.

Her experience and education have prepared her to work with a number of issues, including: