Today we’d like to introduce you to Shannon Black.
Shannon, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Hi! My name is Shannon Black and I came into counseling as a profession after my early childhood and roaring twenties left me with problems I didn’t know how to solve, and without any other resources to solve them. I had landed in Middle Tennessee in 2002 and enrolled in the graduate program at MTSU in 2010 (coincidentally, the year I got sober as well). I became licensed in 2017 after years of education and gathering my clinical hours, have worked with grants, in other people’s private practices, and started my own practice in 2022 after spending a few years teaching at MTSU in the undergraduate psychology and graduate counseling programs. My clients generally work with me on their trauma and attachment issues, and since I now have 16 years of sobriety, we sometimes work on recovery goals as well. I also work for Mercy Community Healthcare in Franklin as a school based therapist, working in a rural pubic 7-12th grade school in Cornersville, TN. I was moved to work with kids on their emotion regulation, worldview, perspective-taking, and the overcoming of trauma and attachment issues so that perhaps they wouldn’t face the same obstacles some of my adult clients do. I am a member and ally of the LGBTQ+ community and consider myself a safe place for clients of diverse backgrounds. I feel very lucky to do what I do.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Moving to primarily telehealth over COVID provided some challenges, both in the teaching world and in the counseling world. I can now see the benefits of meeting clients in their space, with transportation and childcare issues generally made obsolete by meeting through that medium. Clients also have access to items they want to share with me quickly available, and generally feel more comfortable and regulated meeting this way.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Brave Heart Counseling and Consulting?
What I am really excited about today is being able to offer Synchronized Synergistic Therapy (SST): I became certified in May of 2026. I was trained to offer clients sessions in which a licensed bodyworker is present. The bodyworker helps the client access and heal somatic feelings and energy in their body while I provide the therapy work. This type of therapy helps us to move through difficult or traumatic material in a super collaborative and supportive container which addresses the body, mind, and spirit simultaneously. It allows us to move through “stuck” points and “looping,” and provides deeper access for integration between the body and the brain, leading to healing and new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
The SST co-founders will be joining us at MTSU for a 3 day training in August, the 13th-15th, if a therapist or bodyworker with a license to touch is interested, feel free to reach out!
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
What I love about Nashville is our willingness to help each other, amongst the general population and therapist groups in general. There are so many people here dedicated to healing anyone in need, and we provide so many different types of therapy to address whatever is needed! I wish there were more centralized and publicly available lists of resources regarding how people can find and access the help they are looking for:
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.healbravehearts.com
