Michael Perkins
Helping people build skills and resilience
LCSW Missouri
- Experience
- 20 years in practice
- Focus areas
- Relationship, Family, Parenting
- Approaches
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Client-Centered Therapy
- Languages
- English
About Michael
Michael Perkins is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) practicing in Missouri who centers his work on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy alongside client-centered and mindfulness-informed techniques.
Background and approach
With two decades of clinical practice and more than 25 years teaching social work and human services, he blends evidence-based strategies with practical skills training to address stress, anxiety, mood concerns, and life transitions. He emphasizes identifying strengths and building on what is already working while introducing tools to reshape unhelpful thinking patterns.
Perkins has extensive experience supporting people with relationship and family difficulties, parenting challenges, trauma and abuse, anger, intimacy and sexual concerns, career issues, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and compassion fatigue, among other areas. He often offers structured between-session work such as activities and readings to reinforce progress.
Sessions are collaborative, with the client’s goals and lived experience guiding the focus, and practical coping strategies taught in ways that can be applied outside the therapy room. He does not accept clients who live outside Missouri and conducts services in English.
Michael frames therapy as a partnership that draws on clients’ strengths while teaching skills for managing emotions, improving communication, and navigating transitions.
Evidence-Informed Approaches for Online Care
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying and changing unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns. It provides structured tools to address anxiety, mood concerns, stress, and many day-to-day challenges by helping clients practice new ways of responding to difficult thoughts and situations.
Client-centered therapy emphasizes the client’s perspective, creating a collaborative space where the therapist offers empathy and support while clients explore goals and values. Mindfulness-informed techniques help people develop present-moment awareness and skills to manage strong emotions and stressors more effectively.
Finding the right approach is part of the therapeutic process. The therapist works collaboratively with each person to determine which combination of CBT, client-centered methods, and mindfulness practices best matches their needs, goals, and preferences, and adapts strategies as progress unfolds.
Online sessions can make this work more accessible and flexible through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. These options allow clients to fit therapy into busy schedules, practice skills between meetings, and maintain continuity of care when in-person visits are not practical, while still engaging in focused, evidence-informed treatment with a licensed professional.
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Areas of expertise
Primary focus
Also works with
Additional focus areas
Therapeutic approaches
Experience
20+ years
Licensed
Missouri
Languages
English