Corey Connelly
Fellow Traveler Counseling
Senior Associate
MA, LCAS, LCMHC
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
-Viktor Frankl
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Corey’s introduction to therapy began at a young age when she started struggling with anxiety as a child. She started seeing a therapist around age nine, where she learned how to challenge her anxious thoughts and learn coping skills to support her emotional growth. Corey has an immense amount of gratitude for this early experience with therapy, as it not only helped her find control over her emotions and develop her identity, it also led her to major in psychology in college.
Born and raised in Charlotte, Corey left Charlotte to pursue undergraduate studies in Charleston. While in Charleston, she interned as a research assistant with the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center at the Medical University of South Carolina. During her internship, Corey focused on research surrounding preventive parenting and attachment disorders. Her work in research and experience with psychology with her undergraduate studies helped her realize that she wanted to pursue a graduate degree in mental health and addictions counseling.
After completing her master's, she became dually licensed with the North Carolina Substance Abuse Professional Practice Board and the North Carolina Board of Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselors, enabling her clinical work to begin. She started with treating addictions and trauma at a long-term residential treatment facility that served women with severe substance use disorders and PTSD. Building on her experience with substance use disorders, she transitioned to facilitating intensive outpatient treatment with the Mecklenburg County Drug Treatment Court services. From there, she transitioned into treating mental health and co-occuring substance use concerns in residential and intensive outpatient settings.
Her continued training in Exposure and Response Prevention, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy have enabled an all-encompassing treatment approach of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, perfectionism, and anxiety. Her substance abuse-focused experience and licensure also give her the ability to work with co-occurring substance use and individuals in recovery from substance use disorders. As an avid practitioner of mindfulness and meditation herself, she believes that cultivating self-awareness allows oneself to find the space they need to choose the most helpful response in line with their individual values and goals.