wesley

Finding your way
forward after
trauma and loss

In-person in Mount Clemens, MI, and via telehealth across the state

✅ Specializations in stress, trauma, and grief
🗓️ Get started this week
📞 Free consultation call
⏰ Flexible hours
🛋️ In-office, telehealth, and outdoors options


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- Wesley Lawton, MA, LPC

Have you experienced a loss or traumatic event that's left you feeling stuck or directionless?

Does it feel like life can never be good again?

Do you just wish everything could to go back to how it used to be?

Let me introduce myself.

My name is Wesley, and I'm a Licensed Professional Counselor. I've dedicated my career to helping people just like you navigate through life's challenges and overcome the obstacles they face along the way.

Grief

In the weeks, months, and sometimes years after a major life change, it's normal to feel lost, stuck, or misunderstood. While I know that there's nothing anyone can say to take away your pain, I can walk with you on this difficult journey. I can help you process your thoughts and feelings so that they feel less overwhelming. I can help you find peace, as well as hope for what a good life for you can look like.

Click here to learn more about my specialization as a professional grief companion.

Welcome to Our Practice

Trauma

If you have been traumatized by an event in your life, you know that it can have a major impact on your emotions, thoughts, relationships, and physical well-being long after you survived the event itself. Traumas can range from major disasters to seemingly small things you encountered growing up that have stuck with you. I primarily utilize a type of therapy called EMDR to help clients find true healing from trauma and have been trained in an EMDRIA-accredited program.

Click here to learn more about my specialization in treating trauma with EMDR.

Welcome to Our Practice

Here to help

✅ Effects of trauma and distressing life events
✅ Grief and loss
✅ Decreasing or eliminating stress
✅ Finding peace and meaning
✅ Navigating times of personal growth and change
✅ Many other mental health challenges

When you are working with me – regardless of what you are up against – I am present with you, really listening, and respecting you as the expert of your own life. I seek to see you for who you are, and employ effective approaches that best fit you.

Welcome to Our Practice

Fit your preferences

Morning, afternoon, or evening? Online, in-office, or outside? However you're most comfortable, I'm ready to get started sometime this week.

Welcome to Our Practice

Testimonials

  • Wesley is by far one of the most knowledgeable, empathetic and professional therapists I’ve worked with. I’m grateful to have found him. He has played such a positive role in helping me navigate through difficult seasons of my life. ★★★★★

    - Shannon
  • Wes Lawton is an excellent therapist. He has helped me tremendously in my grief. He has great experience with EMDR as well. I would not be where I am today without his help. ★★★★★

    - Terri
  • Zocdoc rating: 5.00 ★★★★★

    Google rating: 5.00 ★★★★★

    - Reviews
  • Wes is a great therapist and easy to work with. He helped my children understand grief when their grandfather passed, and also helped me talk through some life challenges. ★★★★★

    - Glenn
  • Wes is a great therapist and easy to work with. He helped my children understand grief when their grandfather passed, and also helped me talk through some life challenges. ★★★★★

    - Lisa

Podcast & Videos

Recently uploaded mental health resources and insights

Emotions 101

Importance and Urgency

Tips for Loved Ones: From a Therapist's Perspective

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Available Hours

    Mon: 11:00 am – 8:00 pm
    Tue: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
    Wed: 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
    Thur: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

  • What Is Counseling?

    Defining "Therapy"

    Therapy at Growing Forward – also referred to as its full term "psychotherapy" or as "talk therapy" – simply means the treatment that is used to heal or alleviate problems that a client is having. This treatment almost always involves a dialogue – talking together. Another main way of implementing therapy is by putting techniques into practice. These techniques can vary widely, depending on the specific person and their goal. The client might practice the agreed-upon technique in the office with the therapist, or out in their daily lives, whether within their own mind or while interacting with others. Please note that this definition is extremely broad, which is necessary when defining a treatment that can look so different from one client to the next. The goal of therapy generally has to do with changing or reframing how a client approaches something within their mind.

    Counseling Compared to Other Therapeutic Disciplines

    In the state of Michigan, there are basically four types of professionals who can legally work as and call themselves psychotherapists: Counselors, Psychologists, Social Workers, and Psychiatrists. Professionals within any of these four backgrounds have extensive training, including a master's degree or higher, and should be more than sufficiently qualified to work as therapists. However, the education of each type of professional has an area on which they focus more than other disciplines.

    Psychologists usually have the most training in the scientific study of the mind and individual behavior. Social Workers generally have the broadest training, with a strong focus on social services and connecting clients with resources. Psychiatrists are trained as medical doctors as well as therapists, and, because their profession is in such high demand, the vast majority end up focusing most of their efforts on prescribing psychotropic medications. Counselors, of the four, receive an education with the most specific focus as therapists.

    While any of these four may be very adept at being therapists, at scientific study, and at utilizing social resources – and while individual practitioners within any of the disciplines will have a unique passion and set of skills – it can help to be aware of the "specialty" that professionals in each discipline have learned so that you can connect with someone whose background best suits your needs.

  • Insurance & Rates

    I do not accept insurance at Growing Forward. There are six big reasons why I believe this model is best both for me and for the clients I see.

    1. The most direct reason is that when my payment comes from you, my primary incentive is not to do work that will satisfy an insurance company, but to do work that will be most effective at helping you meet your goals.
    2. Taking insurance would require me to give you a diagnosis, which I would then need to report to your insurance company. If you do not seem to qualify for a mental disorder, that would lead either to your insurance refusing to cover counseling or me being forced to be dishonest about the content of our session. Getting paid directly by my clients allows everyone involved to avoid that whole mess.
    3. Getting paid by you is the only way I can provide you with therapy that is fully private and confidential. Insurance companies can demand at any time to see my clinical notes for the sessions they are paying for.
    4. You and I will decide together how many sessions you will have and how frequent they will be. Getting paid by insurance companies would only allow me to see clients for as long as often as insurance dictates.
    5. If I as your therapist were beholden to insurance companies, I would need to document and report on our sessions in very specific ways, and would be under the constant threat of being audited and having to pay the insurance back for not dotting an "i" or crossing a "t." Not taking insurance alleviates that stress, which benefits both me and my clients.
    6. Setting a private pay rate at my own discretion allows me to have balance in my own life and be at my very best when I'm doing my work!


    If you have out-of-network insurance benefits you would like to use, many PPO insurance plans can reimburse you for part or all of the session cost. There are two ways to do this:

    1. I can send you what’s called a Superbill, which is basically an invoice that you can file to your insurance. If they pay for out-of-network mental health services, they’ll process your claim and reimburse you.
    2. We can go through a company I work with called Mentaya. If your insurance covers out-of-network services, Mentaya can file claims and handle the insurance paperwork for you. They charge a 5% fee per claim, but it’s a lot simpler on your end.

    Please note that payment for services is due on the date of the appointment.

    Intake session = $50 (70 minutes)
    All sessions after that = $130 (50 minutes)

    The value you will get for investing in therapy is much higher than many other things that we spend money on throughout our lives. Getting good therapy can lead to dramatic improvements to your mental well-being, which can also affect your physical well-being and other areas of your life. The things you take with you from your therapy sessions can help you navigate life's challenges for many years to come.

  • What To Expect First Session

    Before we get to the first session, we will have been in touch to schedule the appointment, and I will have sent you the intake paperwork to look over. This paperwork details important policies for you to know about. When we meet for the initial session, after introductions, I will review the paperwork with you and answer any questions that you have to make sure you understand everything and agree to those policies.

    Besides ensuring that you feel informed about counseling at Growing Forward, my primary goals for the first session are for me to have a foundational understanding of the problem(s) or goal(s) you're bringing to counseling, and for us to agree on the direction in which we will head to work on fixing the problem(s) or meet the goal(s). Because of the extra time it takes to go over policies and to get that initial understanding of your challenges and your counseling goals, the first session is 70 minutes long, as opposed to 50 minutes that other sessions will last.

  • My Counseling Approach

    At the core of my counseling approach is the therapeutic relationship that you and I have. The primary things that I will bring to that relationship – besides my experience and training and the things I've learned from those – are:

    1. I will always be real with you. You can expect to never feel that I'm pretending to be someone who I'm really not.
    2. I will always seek to see your best, true self so that you can see and feel that reflected in me as we work together. While I'm not perfect and there are moments in which I do not succeed in this effort, most of the time I will. I mean this regardless of what you have done or how you present outwardly.
    3. I will often draw on my well-built muscle of empathy, doing what I can to put myself in your shoes and sit with you in whatever place you find yourself in this season of life.

    Additional ideas that I will almost always draw from with clients are:

    • Mindfulness. Concepts related to mindfulness are an important part of who I am, both personally and professionally, and I may bring up a practice or concept that relates to it.
    • Pragmatism. If something is not realistic, it is not useful. I am less interested in adhering to ideals, any particular philosophy, or even rational thought than I am in using interventions that realistically work for you.
    • Mind-body connection. I strongly believe that our minds and bodies are fundamentally connected to one another, so I may bring up ways that acknowledging that relationship can benefit you, depending on your situation.

    Outside of what I described above, you can expect me to be very flexible about who you are and what works for you, so my approach could look very different from client to client.

    My specialties as a counselor are addressing grief and trauma. You can learn more about specific ways that I approach grief by clicking here. You can learn about my approach to trauma by clicking here.

  • Will you speak at my event? Will you help me communicate something?

    I'd be happy to! These are two other services that I'm happy to make myself available for. Click Here to check out my page about these services.

Available Hours

Mon: 11:00 am – 8:00pm

Thur: 9:00 am – 5:00pm

Tue: 11:00 am – 8:00pm

Wed: 9:00 am – 5:00pm

Contact Me

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