About Sharmen
Sharmen Rutherford uses a practical, person-focused therapy style to help people manage stress, anxiety, addiction, trauma, and mood concerns. She speaks plainly and offers tools clients can use between sessions. Sharmen brings 16 years of clinical experience to her work in Alabama and aims to help people build more stable routines and healthier ways of coping.
Her approach combines acceptance-based methods with cognitive and mindfulness techniques. She helps clients notice unhelpful thoughts, clarify personal values, and build small, sustainable habits.
How Sharmen works
Sessions often include skill practice, goal setting, and talk about what gets in the way of progress. Sharmen has worked with people facing addiction, eating and body image challenges, grief, relationship strain, and burnout. She also supports those dealing with trauma, dissociation, and sleep problems.
Her list of focus areas includes ADHD, bipolar symptoms, anger, low self-esteem, and career stress. Clients can expect a steady, collaborative process. Sharmen uses empathy and straightforward feedback to help people try new coping strategies.
She pays attention to family of origin issues, attachment patterns, and codependency when these topics arise. She holds LPC-MHSP and LPC credentials and draws on multiple therapeutic styles to match a person’s needs. Sessions may include coaching elements alongside clinical work to support life changes and recovery goals.
Sharmen lists 9 ways of working on the entry:
What Sharmen works with
The areas below are the ones Sharmen selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
Also listed
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Registers | LPC-MHSP, LPC |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 16 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Alabama |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
How acceptance, cognitive, and mindfulness methods work online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people clarify what matters most to them and take small actions in that direction. It focuses on noticing thoughts and choosing value-driven steps rather than trying to eliminate every difficult feeling. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at the connection between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and teaches practical skills to challenge unhelpful thinking and build new routines. Mindfulness Therapy emphasizes present-moment awareness and simple practices to reduce reactivity and improve sleep and emotion regulation.Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to decide which methods best match their concerns, goals, and daily life. That plan can change over time as progress is made or obstacles appear.
Online therapy makes these approaches flexible. Video calls allow face-to-face discussion and guided exercises. Phone sessions can be a good option when bandwidth is limited or a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging let clients use brief messages for reflection, coaching, or between-session support. These formats help people fit therapy into work, family, and recovery schedules while practicing skills in real-world settings.
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Common questions
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A practical next step
Write down two things you would want to be different in six months. That is the most useful thing to bring to a first session, whoever it is with. If you would rather start now than keep reading, online sessions are the quickest route.
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