Sarah Belland MA, LPC Associate
Compassionate Therapy Tailored to You
Email: sarahbelland@myjourneypllc.com
You don’t have to navigate life’s challenges alone. Therapy can be place to slow down, feel heard, and better understand yourself and the experiences that have shaped you. As a person-centered therapist, I believe you are the expert of your own life. My role is to meet you where you are, offer without judgment, and work collaboratively with you toward the changes you want to make
My goal is to create a safe, inclusive, and affirming space where you can show up as your whole self. Where you are in your journey, I am here to meet you there and support you as you move toward healing and meaningful growth.
Outside of the therapy room, you can find me spending time with my fiancé, our dog Rey, reading, planting in my little garden, painting, or at a concert.
I work with individuals experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma, stress, and major life transitions. I use an integrative approach that may incorporate CBT, Play Therapy, Schema Therapy, EMDR, and mindfulness-based interventions, depending on your individual needs and goals. I believe therapy should be personalized, collaborative, and focused on helping you develop greater self-understanding, resilience, and confidence.
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Children (8–11): Therapy focuses on externalizing worry into identifiable "characters" or physical sensations. Through interactive games, story-building, and creative exercises, children learn grounding techniques and simple deep-breathing tools to regulate their nervous systems.
Adolescents: Focuses on recognizing the interplay between catastrophic thoughts, physical tension, and avoidance behaviors. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques and mindfulness exercises help teens reframe perfectionism, peer pressure, and stress.
Young Adults: Targets academic pressure, career uncertainty, and identity consolidation. Therapy helps identify automatic negative thoughts, manage somatic stress, and build structured routines to reduce panic and constant apprehension.
Adults: Focuses on unmasking long-term chronic stress, workplace burnout, and boundary management. Interventions explore root causes of worry while teaching evidence-based cognitive restructuring and somatic grounding tools.
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Children (8–11): Traumatic experiences are processed through gentle, indirect modalities like child-centered play interventions and story work. Children build a sense of safety and body awareness without having to recount details prematurely.
Adolescents: Therapy utilizes structured frameworks like EMDR or Trauma-Focused CBT to help teens process difficult experiences, reduce emotional reactivity, and rebuild self-worth and a feeling of control.
Young Adults: Focuses on integrating unresolved past trauma with newly acquired independence. Clients explore how childhood or relational trauma impacts their decision-making and relationships while using EMDR or Schema Therapy to process distressing memories.
Adults: Involves deep processing of past or recent single-incident and complex trauma. Sessions emphasize emotional regulation, reframing core beliefs around safety and guilt, and restoring body-mind coherence.
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Children (8–11): Addresses persistent fear reactions, nightmares, and behavioral outbursts using sensory grounding, safety planning, and play-based emotional expression to reduce triggering responses.
Adolescents: Focuses on managing hypervigilance, flashbacks, and avoidant habits. Teens learn specific grounding exercises, bilateral stimulation, and emotion-regulation strategies to navigate everyday triggers safely.
Young Adults: Combines targeted trauma processing (EMDR) with skill-building to reduce intrusion symptoms, sleep disturbances, and emotional numbness, allowing clients to fully participate in work, school, and social life.
Adults: Uses evidence-based trauma modalities to target triggers, hyperarousal, and emotional detachment, helping clients safely integrate traumatic memories and regain emotional control.
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Children (8–11): Play-based activities and strengths-focused gaming explore personal accomplishment, building confidence, resilience against failure, and positive self-talk.
Adolescents: Addresses negative self-talk, social media comparison, and body image. Teens explore personal identity and learn to separate their worth from academic achievement or peer approval.
Young Adults: Focuses on overcoming imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and fear of failure during life transitions like entering the workforce or living independently.
Adults: Focuses on rewriting deep-seated negative core beliefs, overcoming self-sabotage, and cultivating genuine self-compassion across career, parenting, and personal roles.
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Children (8–11): Focuses on making and keeping friends, understanding social cues, sharing, and navigating conflict during play or school activities.
Adolescents: Targets peer dynamics, romantic relationships, family conflicts, and setting healthy boundary limits amid peer pressure.
Young Adults: Explores attachment patterns, dating dynamics, communication breakdowns with family, and forming healthy support networks during transitional life stages.
Adults: Focuses on partner relationships, work dynamics, setting firm boundaries with family, and resolving recurring conflicts or codependency patterns.
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Children (8–11): Utilizes interactive play and gaming environments to practice turn-taking, active listening, perspective-taking, and read body language in low-stakes settings.
Adolescents: Practice real-world scenarios, conversation starters, reading group dynamics, and building confidence in group or school environments.
Young Adults: Focuses on professional networking, social anxiety in group settings, initiating friendships post-graduation, and clear self-expression.
Adults: Targets professional communication, overcoming social hesitation, navigating group dynamics, and forming meaningful connections as an adult.
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Children (8–11): Teaches basic emotional vocabulary so children can express feelings ("I feel frustrated when...") instead of acting them out behaviorally.
Adolescents: Focuses on assertive communication, active listening, expressing needs to parents and peers without aggression or shut-downs.
Young Adults: Focuses on self-advocacy in academic or workplace environments, resolving roommate/partner disputes, and expressing boundaries clearly.
Adults: Focuses on clear, non-defensive communication strategies, conflict resolution styles, active listening, and setting firm interpersonal boundaries.
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Children (8–11): Identifies physical "warning signs" in the body before emotional meltdowns occur. Children learn concrete cooling-down tools, sensory breaks, and self-soothing steps.
Adolescents: Addresses intense mood swings, frustration tolerance, and emotional overwhelm using mindfulness, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills, and cognitive pause techniques.
Young Adults: Focuses on navigating strong emotional reactions to stress, rejection, or life changes, helping clients respond thoughtfully rather than impulsively.
Adults: Focuses on managing anger, overwhelm, and mood fluctuations, cultivating a steady nervous system response through somatic and cognitive strategies.
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Children (8–11): Employs interactive routines, game-based focus exercises, and behavioral strategies to build organization, working memory, and impulse control.
Adolescents: Focuses on time management, combating procrastination, study routines, and addressing emotional dysregulation or rejection sensitivity common with neurodivergence.
Young Adults: Targets executive dysfunction in independent settings—managing money, schedule organization, academic tasks, and preventing burnout.
Adults: Focuses on unmasking ADHD, organizing home/work environments, overcoming executive dysfunction paralysis, and leveraging neurodivergent strengths.
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Children (8–11): Helps children adjust to major life changes—such as moving, parental separation, or switching schools—by establishing safety, routine, and healthy outlets.
Adolescents: Focuses on transitions like entering high school, preparing for college or trade paths, changing peer groups, and emerging independence.
Young Adults: Addresses navigating post-college life, entering the workforce, moving away from home, and adjusting to adult responsibilities.
Adults: Focuses on major milestones like career shifts, marriage, parenthood, divorce, relocation, or aging, fostering adaptability and resilience.
Areas of Focus
Virtual Sessions
Flexible, Secure & Personalized Care
Convenient & Private: Access therapy safely from your own space without travel, scheduling stress, or privacy concerns.
Tailored Approach: Sessions are fully adapted to your comfort level, unique needs, and personal goals.
Compassionate Support: Experience a non-judgmental, welcoming environment built around your growth and pace.
Virtual Play Therapy Sessions adapt traditional play therapy techniques. Children use their home environment to share toys or engage in directive games that encourage emotional expression and problem-solving.
Utilizing Online Gaming Platforms Therapists join children in safe, co-play environments within platforms like Hopscotch Play, Roblox, or Minecraft. Building projects, navigating in-game challenges, and exploring custom worlds together create a natural, low-pressure space to observe behavior, practice emotional regulation, build rapport, and rehearse social and communication skills in real time.
Art Tools & Creative Techniques Clients use household art supplies (paper, markers, clay) alongside digital drawing with shared online whiteboards. Interactive art prompts, collaborative drawing exercises, and digital collage-making help children visually process feelings, explore identity, and express complex thoughts that might be difficult to put into words.
Working with Youth Virtually
Comfort and Psychological Safety Processing traumatic or distressing memories in a familiar, comfortable setting allows clients to feel grounded and secure. Being surrounded by personal items, pets, or comfortable seating helps lower baseline anxiety and makes vulnerable work feel less intimidating.
Immediate Access to Real-Time Resources Clients can instantly access their own coping mechanisms during or after a session, whether that means wrapping up in a favorite blanket, hugging a pet, sipping tea, or stepping into another room to rest immediately after processing concludes.
Elimination of Travel Stress Navigating traffic, rushing to appointments, or sitting in a commercial waiting room right after an intense trauma processing session can dysregulate the nervous system. Virtual sessions eliminate travel entirely, allowing clients to transition smoothly from therapy back into their daily routine or dedicated rest time.
Increased Access and Convenience Virtual EMDR allows clients to maintain consistent care without geographic restrictions or transportation barriers, making it far easier to fit specialized trauma work into busy school or work schedules.
Using EMDR Virtually
My Journey to Mental Health Care
My journey into the mental health field began with a genuine curiosity about people and a desire to understand the things that shape who we are. During my undergraduate education at Texas A&M University, I studied Psychology and completed a minor in Neuroscience, along with a certificate in Applied Behavioral Health. Through my education, I became increasingly interested int he connection between our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and relationships This solidified for me that I wanted to pursue a career where I could support others in a meaningful and impactful way.
My desire to help others continued to grow through my involvement in a student organization focused on helping students explore and pursue careers in healthcare. As a leader within the organization, I had the privilege of working alongside fellow students preparing for careers as doctors, nurses, dentists, mental health professions, and other health care providers. This experience reinforced my passion for helping others build towards their dreams and a broader appreciation for the many ways we can support a person’s well-being.
My understanding of caring for others was further shaped through my experience as a private caregiver. This role taught me the importance of patience, compassion, and meeting people where they are. It showed me that meaningful support begins with simply being present, showing up, listening, and recognizing each person’s individual needs.
My understanding of therapy is also shaped by my own experience as a client! I began attending therapy in high school while navigating transitions towards college, anxiety and periods of self-doubts. Having experienced therapy first hand gave me an appreciation for how impactful it can be to have a safe, supportive, and nonjudgmental space to process areas of your life. This experience as a client continues to influence how I show up for my clients. I understand how vulnerable it can feel to ask for help, and I want my clients to now they don’t have to have all the answers before they enter into sessions.
Life experience ultimately led me to pursue a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Throughout my education and clinical experiences, I have had the opportunity to work with individuals across a wide rage of ages and experiences. each encounter has reinforced my belief that there is no single path towards healing and that therapy should be personalized to the individual sitting with me.
I feel so incredibly fortunate to have found a career that brings my passion for understanding people, experiences supporting others, and belief in power of strong therapeutic relationships. It is a privilege to talk alongside people as they navigate challenges, discover their strengths, and create meaningful changes in their lives.
Masters of Arts Clinical Mental Health Counseling - West Texas A&M University
Bachelors of Science in Psychology - Neuroscience - Texas A&M University
Certificate Applied Behavioral Health
Education
Certifications
EMDR Basic Training - EMDRIA approved program
CBT and ACT - anxiety and depression
Trainings
