Anne Beverly
Anne Beverly is the owner of the Bluebird Counseling Center. The center offers general 55-minute counseling sessions in addition to sessions specifically designed for families, couples, and teens. Her specialty is in empowering women, and she uses Solution-Focused Therapy, which involves working collaboratively with clients to find solutions to their problems.
Before opening up her own counseling center, Anne was a teacher in special education. “I became a special ed teacher right out of school because I thought that was the path that I wanted, and I really liked helping people,” she explains. “I found myself doing a lot of counseling, even though I wasn’t quite trained to do it. I kind of parlayed that into switching careers after ten years of teaching. This is really my life’s passion. I always wanted to have my own private practice, and finally that’s true for me.”
Throughout her teaching career, Anne had many parents come to her for advice and comfort. “I had a lot of parents coming to me asking, ‘Will my child ever be normal? Will they grow up to have a normal life?’” Though Anne had ten years of teaching experience under her belt, she felt that she was being called to use her gift to support others. She quit teaching, went back to school at Merrimack University, and earned her Master’s in Clinical Mental Health. “Some people are in careers that are not their true passion,” Anne observes. “I think that I was an okay teacher, but I wasn’t a great teacher, and I think it was because I was always kind of meant to do this other thing.”
Empowering Women
Anne specializes in Women’s Empowerment Therapy. “I help women, especially those who are trying to overcome sexual assault,” she says. “That happens to be one of my biggest passions, is helping women to be resilient.” She uses role-playing techniques and positive self-talk to encourage women to feel better about themselves and build the courage to move forward with their lives. “When they break through and are really able to express themselves, there’s really nothing better than that.”
Anne works at a fast pace, hoping to get each of her clients feeling healthier and more empowered as quick as possible so that they can live happier lives for longer. “Some people take longer than others, depending on the amount of trauma or what resilience skills they might have had,” she adds. “I just want to meet the client wherever they are. So I want to make sure I’m providing really high quality counseling….so that if insurance isn’t gonna pay for them for years, then they don’t have to come for years. They can kind of feel better quickly and then move on.” She looks at her clients and wants their pain to end as soon as possible so they can enjoy the only life they have to its fullest extent.
The Power of Self-Talk
“All of us are prone to negative self-talk, whether that started in childhood or adolescence or whatever. What I’ve seen is that women in particular just are berating themselves constantly to an obscene amount. Like if you were talking to a friend that way, they wouldn’t be your friend anymore.” One of Anne’s methods is to give her clients a positive mantra to say to themselves over and over again because she believes in the power of repetition and shoving the negative out of the way through positivity.
“There’s so much pressure on people today,” Anne points out. “You know, if you look at Instagram, nobody has an unflattering picture. We only ever post our child winning the spelling bee. We don’t post about the mental breakdown. I think that we just all hold ourselves to this crazy, unattainable, unrealistic standard, and we don’t realize our own worth.” Her goal is to show people their worth by leading them to recognize disabling beliefs and allowing them to see the loose ground those beliefs stand on.
Reaching Out
Anne offers free, casual, 20-minute consultations to new potential clients in order to ensure that it’s a good fit. You can reach out to her for more information or to receive your free consultation by calling or texting her at (571) 308-3672 or by visiting her website at Bluebird Counseling Center.
