About
CLINICAL expertise
I have experience and clinical training in the following:
EMDR Therapy (in training)
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
Depression
Anxiety
Perfectionism
Trauma
Family conflict
Parenting stress
Adolescents
Drug/alcohol addiction
Legal issues
Prisoner re-entry
When I googled marketing for therapy, the articles say I need to come up with my unique value proposition (UVP) - basically why me and not one of the other therapists out there. So I will attempt to distill what I believe to be my UVP:
I offer unending compassion and empathy, balanced with a desire to see you heal, which sometimes means gently nudging you to experience discomfort in service of change
I love to read and research - I stay up-to-date on the newest treatments and findings, and have a specific interest in concepts related to neuroplasticity and the brain’s ability to recover from trauma
I have about ten years of experience working in and around the criminal justice system - at this point, there’s not much you could tell me that would shock/surprise/scare me - I’m here for all of it, and no matter how serious, there is a path forward, even if you can’t yet see it
I am in-network with the insurance companies listed below, and can also bill out-of-network for those not listed. To get the most accurate coverage information, contact your insurance company and ask about outpatient mental health coverage.
Insurance/Fee iNformation
Ann-marie shibley, LMSW
Owner
I started working as an outpatient mental health therapist in 2017. Most of my professional life I’ve split my time between providing care in a traditional therapy office setting, and running treatment groups as a contractor for the Michigan Department of Corrections. In March 2024, I decided to shift to running my own private practice, in order to have more flexibility in my work hours and to dedicate more time to writing.
My goal in our sessions together is to create a non-judgmental, open, accepting environment where you can explore those things which are keeping you stuck. My approach blends compassion with an extensive knowledge of therapeutic techniques and interventions, current best practices and research, as well as a wide breath of clinical experiences.
Over the years I have seen tremendous growth and change in those I’ve worked with, and it reaffirms everyday the power of an authentic, caring, therapeutic relationship in its ability to heal. If you’d like to understand more about how I operate, I’d encourage you to read the client statement included below.
Client statement
I have been in therapy on and off since I was 16yrs old and I have seen many different therapists over the years. The majority of clinicians out there seem to focus on being a safe place for you to share your thoughts, life story and daily struggles. That may be exactly what some people need but I had always wanted to get more than that out of therapy.
During the lock down period of the pandemic, I was going through multiple major life challenges at once and I was extremely overwhelmed. The therapist that I had been working with at the time abruptly quit and I was searching for a new provider. In less than a year, I went through four different clinicians. The last one legit told me that if I was feeling depressed, I could just do some jumping jacks and I would feel better. That was the last straw for me. I was so burned out on life itself and having to retell my life story over and over again was extremely draining.
Years prior to this, I had been seeing Ann-Marie. She had been the perfect fit for me, but she had left the practice where I was seeing her. She was someone that you have those ‘light bulb’ moments with. There were numerous times that she would point out why I might have been thinking the way that I was or having the emotions that I did, and it just made sense. She was the first to ever point out to me that the negative voice in my head wasn’t mine, it was my mom. I decided to track her down and I was lucky enough to find her and be her client again.
Working with her has led me down a path of deep personal growth and understanding and it’s a path that I would have never been able to see on my own.
While I realize that I have put in a lot of work to get to where I am today, I also know that I would have never got here by myself. Ann-Marie is more than just a therapist to me. The trauma I have experienced in my life left me in the dark. I was stuck and felt like I would be stuck there forever. I thought healing meant just learning to cope with being stuck in the dark, empty forest in my mind. There may have been a path out of there, right in front of my face but it was too dark for me to ever see it. Ann-Marie shined a light in the right direction to help lead me out. That darkness is still there but it is such a small fraction of who I am. It’s no longer all consuming. Ann-Marie has led me to a life of living, not just surviving.