Elana Stephens

Sometimes, navigating life’s stressors and transitions can seem overwhelming and isolating. Having a positive and compassionate guide on the journey can be helpful. If you are interested in improving your mood and strengthening your resilience. Elana can help you with her person-centered and strength-based approaches to therapy. If your goal is to learn tools and achieve sustainable mental health results, she can help you.

Elana has been working in the mental health field with youths and young adults for almost a decade. While undertaking her bachelor's and master’s in social work, she worked at mental health and clinical assessment centers. She also volunteered for a national crisis line. Elana earned her bachelor’s in social work and arts applications from North Carolina State University (NCSU). Then earned her masters from Walden University. After acquiring licensing in 2022, she led groups with individuals enrolled in PHP (partial hospitalization programs) and IOP (intensive outpatient programs). She has experience teaching, empowering, and caring for individuals with mental health concerns.

During therapy, she guides clients in identifying and utilizing their natural supports, values, strengths, and resources. These are the keys to her client’s sustainability. Their natural tools paired with additional evidence-based practices help them develop effective methods of addressing issues. She incorporates the following modalities in sessions: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with Trauma. She is also a trained practitioner in Brainspotting. 

Elana strives to create an accepting, comfortable, and non-judgmental environment for clients to address and prepare for challenges. The techniques she applies are compassion-based and solution-focused and trauma-focused. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, low self-esteem, low self-worth, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, behavioral/emotional dysregulation, grief/loss, and co-dependency are some of the issues she offers holistic services for.

For fun, she enjoys playing card games like Yu-Gi-oh, watching Japanese cartoons, and playing video games. Her husband and she collect, sell, and trade retro video games and systems as a hobby. Storytelling is also one of her gifts. She is the Dungeon Master of her Dungeons & Dragons party. She enjoys creating elaborate worlds and challenges for her party members. She also enjoys traveling and lived in Augusta, Georgia for almost five years. She has traveled to places like Rome, Ireland, Mexico, and Jamaica. 

Elana is from a small town that is 30 minutes from Raleigh, called Bunn. She spent most of her life in and around Raleigh, NC and wants to provide healing in her community. In her life she has at times felt isolated, anxious, overwhelmed, inadequate, and stagnant. She wants her clients to know that they are not alone and that they have power. She understands that everyone is different with different strengths and weaknesses and backgrounds and therapeutic needs. The goal of therapy is to discover what your issues are and learn ways to recover from pain.

Click here to view Elana's profile on Psychology Today.