About Stephanie Devereux, LPC
Therapy works better when you can actually be yourself.
You do not need to know how to “do therapy.” You can laugh, swear, say “I don’t know,” change your mind, disagree with me, or admit something you feel ashamed of. We’ll sort it out together.
Contact Stephanie
You Can Come in Exactly Where You Are
I’m a therapist, and I’m also another person sitting across from you.
A lot of my work involves helping people understand why they think, feel, and respond the way they do. Sometimes the ways we learn to think or behave were protective at one point—they helped us cope, avoid conflict, stay connected, or make sense of what was happening. A pattern can have served a purpose and still no longer serve you now.
Past experiences can also shape how we interpret what is happening in the present. We may expect criticism, rejection, conflict, or disappointment because of what we have learned to expect before, even when the circumstances in front of us are different.
Therapy gives us a place to notice those patterns, understand where they came from, and decide what still fits, what may be shaping the way you see things now, and what you want to do differently.
Understanding Without Excusing
You can take responsibility for something you’ve done and still have compassion for the person who did it. You can regret something without deciding that it defines who you are.
Understanding where a behavior or coping strategy came from is not the same as minimizing its consequences. Often, understanding is what gives us enough information to actually change it.
Feeling Safe Enough to Be Known
Most of us want to feel seen, understood, accepted, and safe in our relationships. But being truly known requires some vulnerability.
Sometimes the fear of criticism, rejection, conflict, or shame can make it difficult to show certain parts of yourself in the first place. And if showing those parts of yourself has led to those experiences before, it makes sense that you learned to protect them.
Those protections may reduce the risk of rejection while also making it harder to experience being fully known and still accepted.
The goal isn’t to become vulnerable with everyone. Not everyone deserves access to every part of you. Part of the work can be understanding which parts of yourself feel risky to show, deciding what you want to share and with whom, recognizing who has earned your trust, and noticing when an old protection may be keeping you guarded even when the relationship in front of you is different.
Therapy Should Eventually Leave the Therapy Room
Understanding matters. So does what you do with that understanding.
Some sessions may involve sitting with something difficult and trying to understand it. Others may be practical: learning a skill, challenging an assumption, talking through a decision, or identifying something to practice between sessions.
At times, I may ask you to notice a pattern between sessions, reflect on a reaction, journal about something, or practice responding differently.
Approach & Background
My work is client-centered and integrative. Depending on your needs, I may draw from CBT, DBT, Motivational Interviewing, Mindfulness-Based CBT, Schema Therapy, trauma-informed approaches, Brainspotting, and relationship-focused theory and interventions.
I am a Missouri Licensed Professional Counselor (License No. 2014000733) and earned my MA in Professional Counseling from Lindenwood University in 2011. I work with adults in individual therapy and with couples.
The goal isn’t just to understand your life better. It’s to use that understanding to help you live it differently.
Ready to Talk?
You don’t have to know exactly what to say. If something here feels familiar, we can start there.
Contact Stephanie