Walking With You Toward Healing & Growth
Hi, I’m Michele Blake, LCMHC, MBA, a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and the founder of Coffee Talk Therapy. I work with children, teens, young adults, adults, couples, and families, helping them build deeper connection through effective communication, grace, and understanding. I honor each individual’s uniqueness and help clients recognize their gifts and talents while navigating life’s challenges.
Before entering the counseling field, I spent 25 years as a child development and behavioral specialist, supporting children, families, and educators while advocating for early intervention. I also create and facilitate continuing education trainings and workshops for child development professionals and parents, and I serve as a speaker at early childhood conferences across the state, promoting creative classrooms, social-emotional learning, and a healthy work-life balance for educators.
Through both my professional and volunteer work, I have developed a deep passion for people, their stories, and their inherent worth. I believe every individual has something meaningful to offer the world, and as a therapist, I am honored to walk alongside them as they discover this truth.
My approach to therapy is collaborative, compassionate, and client-centered, creating a safe, nonjudgmental space where individuals, teens, couples, and families can explore their experiences at their own pace. Using trauma-informed, evidence-based approaches, I support clients in navigating anxiety, depression, grief, relationship challenges, and life transitions. In our work together, I walk alongside you as we gently reflect on the experiences that have shaped how you see yourself and the world around you.
My goal is to help you rediscover your worth, gifts, and inner strengths. Through attentive listening and thoughtful reflection, I help bring forward the resilience and qualities that clients often overlook in themselves. Together, we build practical tools to strengthen coping skills, set healthy boundaries, and shift perspectives, creating a more balanced and connected life; one that leaves room for authenticity, confidence, and joy.
MY Approach
SPECIALTIES
Anxiety and stress management
Depression and mood regulation
Trauma, including sexual trauma
Postpartum and maternal mental health
Grief and loss
Relationship and relational conflict
Life transitions and burnout
Women’s issues and identity exploration
Teen and young adult support
Family and couples therapy
Healing, to me, is the process of slowing down long enough to truly see and understand ourselves, our stories, our pain, our resilience, and our worth. It’s not about erasing struggles or pretending they don’t exist. Instead, it’s about making space to explore them with honesty and compassion, while reconnecting with the strengths, gifts, and wisdom that have always been within you.
THE BEST PART OF NC RENN FAIRE
A LITTLE ABOUT ME
I grew up on a horse farm in a small town in Michigan and spent part of my high school years in Portland, Maine. In 1989, I moved to North Carolina to join a musical theater group in Cary, where I met my husband, David. At heart, I’m a farm-animal-loving musical theater kid who enjoys meaningful conversations, Jane Austen, spending time with my family, and cuddling my fur babies. I proudly embrace being eclectic, creative, and neurodivergent, and these personal passions inform how I connect with clients with curiosity, authenticity, and warmth.
LOGISTICS
Working with Michele feels authentic, supportive, and empowering. She partners with clients to explore their experiences, uncover patterns that may be holding them back, and develop practical tools for managing emotions, relationships, and life’s challenges. Honest and intuitive, Michele makes therapy feel like a comfortable conversation even when addressing difficult topics. Whether you are navigating anxiety, building confidence, reconnecting with creativity, or rebuilding important relationships, she helps clients gain insight, strengthen coping skills, and move forward with clarity and intention.
WHAT CLIENTS ARE SAYING
Ages Served: 4 and up
Format: Telehealth and In-person
Insurance: BCBS, Aetna, Cigna, United Health Care (Optum), and Private Pay
Certification: Amen Brain Health Coach
Other: Approved provider for North Carolina State Employees BHAP Program
“Michele provided me a space to share my feelings about and feel safe towards my troubled home situation. Through her guidance I was able to accept my past experiences and rebuild relationships that were suffering. I’ll always be grateful to Michele for building the confidence I needed to reach my long term goals.”
- ANGELA, COFFEE TALK CLIENT