Avery Connolly, LPC
150 S. Warner Road, Suite 130
King of Prussia, PA 19406
(484) 402-7109
Avery Connolly, LPC
Avery is a Licensed Professional Counselor with over a decade of experience working with adults with mental, emotional, and behavioral health issues. Avery has counseled individuals with a variety of presenting conditions, including depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, anger management concerns, phase of life problems, family and relationship issues, grief/loss and trauma. Avery is a trained EMDR therapist and certified as a Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP).
What To Expect in a Therapy Session
Therapy sessions, like people, are unique and diverse. Avery values taking the time to understand her clients as individuals – with unique needs, stories, meanings, and beliefs – to cultivate a natural therapeutic environment that reflects how clients see themselves. With an established foundation of trust and unbiased acceptance, therapy allows clients to safely explore uncomfortable emotions, faulty beliefs, and the unhelpful behaviors that accompany them. By integrating insights with tools and techniques for neurowellness in therapy, clients can form a healthier sense of self, positively shaping the quality of their experiences and how they engage with their world.
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Treatment Methods and Tools
Avery's counseling style is integrated and flexible, blending trauma-informed care with strategies for mindfulness, focused attention, neurowellness, and emotional regulation to help clients understand and revisit their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Avery practices Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, a leading evidence-based method in the treatment of trauma. In EMDR, by focusing on a specific problem or traumatic memory and adding a process called bilateral stimulation, the brain activates its natural problem-solving process, seeking resolution from old problems that keep surfacing in the present. EMDR can benefit anyone that finds themselves distressed by familiar triggers, unhelpful beliefs, and unwanted coping responses.
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Therapeutic Approach
Avery values the therapeutic relationship as the essential vehicle for a positive counseling experience, and prioritizes creating an environment of warmth, trust, safety and acceptance. Ultimately, Avery believes her role as a therapist is to use compassion and empathy to support individuals in better interacting with their experiences and creating new and more adaptive ways of understanding themselves and the world in which they exist.
Background and Experience
Avery's career in mental healthcare began in the community nonprofit sector, working with adults with diagnosed mental illness in Washington DC. From 2013 to 2016 Avery worked at Green Door Behavioral Health as the dedicated mental health therapist contracted within the DC Department of Corrections, providing psychotherapy and forensic care coordination to incarcerated individuals preparing for community reintegration. Access to quality mental healthcare for vulnerable populations - particularly those in the prison system - has long been an area of passion for Avery, compelling her to write publicly about this issue.
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From there, Avery bridged her experiences in community mental health to a management position with Pathways to Housing DC, serving as the Clinical Supervisor for a transdisciplinary Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team providing mental health and recovery services to over 80 clients with severe and persistent mental illness. As Clinical Supervisor, Avery provided individual, group, and field supervision for a team of 10 therapists, social workers, nurses, and peer supports to ensure that clients' self-identified goals for recovery, rehabilitation, and wellness were supported by appropriate services and best practices.
In 2018 Avery moved to Pennsylvania where she joined Daemion Counseling Center, a nonprofit community counseling center that provides affordable and accessible mental health services within the comfort and intimacy of a private practice setting. In addition to providing individual and family therapy services at Daemion Counseling, Avery developed and led a series of 18 support groups titled Healing for the Helping Professional (depicted in photo). These groups were designed to provide emotional support and education around best self-care practices to promote resiliency for helping professionals in the community. At the conclusion of the groups, 93% of participants reported some improvement in personal self-care practices, while 73% reported a significant improvement in their ability to better respond to and manage their emotions and behaviors.
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Avery has a Master’s Degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from The George Washington University and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Mental Health Counseling from Messiah College. Avery is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Pennsylvania and a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC). She has been working independently as a private practice therapist since 2021.
