About Shayla
Shayla Finnissee is a licensed mental health counselor who uses practical, evidence-informed methods to help people manage everyday struggles. She draws on therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy to address stress, anxiety, depression, and ADHD-related concerns. Shayla speaks plainly and aims to make sessions feel clear and manageable for worried parents reading on a phone.
Shayla works from a respectful, compassionate stance and shapes each session around the individual's needs.
Background and approach
She focuses on building skills for handling triggers, reorganizing daily routines, and reducing overwhelming thoughts. Conversations often include concrete tools for coping, behavior changes, and ways to improve focus and organization. Relationship and family matters are another common focus.
She helps people navigate communication problems, intimacy concerns, grief, and the ripple effects of trauma and abuse. When addictions or bipolar symptoms are involved, she combines practical strategies with emotion-focused exploration to reduce harm and increase stability. Her approach also targets deeper experiences such as guilt, shame, isolation, and questions about life purpose or self-love.
Sessions can include guided exercises to reconnect with values, strengthen attachments, and practice healthier patterns of relating. Shayla has worked in the field for 10 years and holds the LMHC credential, licensed in Florida. Her style aims to be collaborative and down-to-earth, helping people take small steps toward clearer thinking, steadier mood, and better day-to-day functioning.
Therapeutic approaches and how they translate online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and commit to actions that match their values. Online sessions can introduce small experiments and values-based exercises to improve focus and reduce avoidance. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on identifying thought and behavior patterns that maintain anxiety, depression, or attention difficulties. In telehealth sessions, CBT techniques like behavioral scheduling, thought records, and skill rehearsal are shared and practiced together.Choosing the best approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will discuss goals, preferences, and what feels most useful, then adapt methods as therapy progresses. Clients often try a few techniques and keep the ones that fit their life and pacing.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is useful for longer, interactive sessions and exercises that benefit from face-to-face cues. Phone sessions are an option when a quicker check-in or lower bandwidth is needed. Live chat and text messaging work well for brief support, homework check-ins, or when clients prefer writing to speaking. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules and to use tools consistently between sessions.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
Also listed
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed
- Florida
- Languages
- English
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