Shirley Butler, LCSW

Shirley Butler is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in Montana with 23 years of experience in mental health work. She has practiced in community mental health and Tribal Behavioral Health, and she has run a private practice since 2013. Shirley lists concerns she addresses including stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, depression, relationship and family issues, grief, parenting, and codependency.

Her path began with a Bachelor in Human Services Rehabilitation from Salish Kootenai College and a Master of Social Work from Walla Walla University in Missoula, Montana. She completed three thousand supervised clinical hours before sitting for the clinical license exam. Those years included crisis on-call work and office-based care across different settings.

Shirley describes working with a wide variety of cultures and communities, including extended time living and working on the reservation. That background informs how she notices cultural differences and individual context when talking with people.

In practice she emphasizes hearing each person’s story. She spends time building rapport and a working alliance before developing a treatment plan. She says plans are made together and are specific to the person’s goals and concerns.

Her clinical approaches include Attachment-Based Therapy, Client-Centered Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT). She also notes training in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which she has used with post-traumatic stress and other distressing experiences.

People who find themselves repeatedly putting others first, struggling with boundaries, or feeling stuck after relationship loss may find her practical, story-focused way of working useful. She encourages collaborative planning and clear steps to address immediate coping and longer term change.

How Shirley’s therapeutic approaches translate to online work