Shirley Butler , LCSW

Shirley Butler is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) based in Montana with 23 years of experience in the mental health field. She trained in human services and rehabilitation at Salish Kootenai College, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1998, and completed a Master of Social Work at Walla Walla University in Missoula in 2004. After completing three thousand supervised clinical hours, she qualified to sit for the clinical licensing exam and now carries the LCSW credential, which designates advanced clinical training in social work.

Her career spans community mental health and Tribal Behavioral Health settings, where she served as a rotating crisis on-call therapist in addition to offering in-office care. She established a private practice in 2013 and brings experience from working on the reservation as well as living in many other cultural contexts. That background informs a respectful approach to diversity and cultural differences in therapy.

Shirley is trained in EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing - a modality that has been shown to be helpful for post-traumatic stress and other distressing experiences. She places strong emphasis on building rapport and a collaborative treatment plan tailored to each person’s unique history and goals. Rooted in curiosity about people, cultures, and behavior, her work centers on helping individuals tell their own stories and explore the areas of self they wish to examine to progress and grow.

Her clinical focus includes stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, self-esteem, depression, coping with life changes, relationships and family concerns, grief, parenting, anger, career issues, and bipolar disorder. Additional areas of focus include abandonment, codependency, commitment struggles, communication problems, forgiveness, post-traumatic stress, self-love, and women’s issues.

Therapeutic Approaches and Online Support

Shirley Butler draws from several well-established approaches to support clients in addressing emotional pain and relational struggles. Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on patterns of connection formed early in life and helps people understand how those patterns affect current relationships and emotional responses. Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes a respectful, nonjudgmental relationship in which the therapist follows the client's lead and helps the person clarify values, choices, and goals. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps identify unhelpful thought patterns and teaches practical strategies to change thinking and behavior that contribute to anxiety, depression, and stress.

Finding the right approach is part of the therapeutic process. Shirley collaborates with each person to explore which methods fit their needs, goals, and preferences, and she adapts the plan as work progresses to ensure it remains helpful and relevant.

Online therapy with Shirley includes options such as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging, offering flexibility for varying schedules and locations. These formats make it easier to maintain consistent care, access support from different places, and choose the communication style that feels most comfortable while working with licensed professionals and therapists.