Shirley Williams, LCSW, CSW

Shirley Williams is a Colorado-based licensed mental health professional with 35 years of clinical experience working with individuals, couples, and families. She holds LCSW and CSW credentials - Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Social Worker - and brings a broad background in family systems, trauma work, and somatic approaches to therapy. She earned a BA in Psychology and an MSW from Wayne State University, then completed a two-year intensive family therapy program at the Ann Arbor Center for the Family early in her career, when Family Systems Therapy was emerging in the field.

Her clinical path has included extensive work across health care settings, hospice, schools, foster care and adoption services, pregnancy support programs, and services for people with disabilities and their caregivers, including those who care for animals. In 2000 she completed a 1,000-hour massage therapy program at the Boulder College of Massage Therapy and later achieved national certification and Colorado state licensure in massage and bodywork. That dual training supports a trauma-sensitive, somatic-informed stance in her therapeutic work.

Shirley integrates evidence-informed trauma modalities such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and trauma-focused therapy, and she has incorporated the Flash Technique into EMDR-informed trauma resolution with positive client response. Narrative therapy and expressive arts methods are also part of her toolkit, and she sometimes introduces sound therapy, dance and movement, or clay work in both virtual and in-person sessions. Her practice addresses a wide range of concerns including relationship and family issues, grief and loss, trauma and abuse, anxiety and depression, ADHD, parenting, intimacy challenges, eating and sleep difficulties, caregiver stress, chronic illness and pain, and end-of-life counseling.

Curiosity and a lifelong commitment to learning shape Shirley's approach. She emphasizes practical coping strategies, compassionate coaching, and individualized treatment plans that draw from somatic, narrative, and trauma-focused techniques to help clients navigate life transitions and heal from past wounds.