Rebecca Burt

I offer space where you feel truly seen and heard, heal, and change.

Areas of Clinical Specialty

When stress, past experiences, or ongoing pressure begin to interfere with focus, relationships, or an overall sense of stability, therapy can provide a steady space to regain perspective and move forward. Rebecca works with adults in individual therapy, helping clients better understand long-standing behavioral patterns and develop highly practical ways to manage their impact on daily life.

Rebecca frequently supports clients dealing with complex clinical presentations, including post-traumatic stress, deep-seated developmental challenges, and emotional blocks. Many individuals enter therapy feeling stuck, disconnected, or unsure why certain reactions or automatic behaviors continue to surface despite their best efforts. Working collaboratively, Rebecca helps clients identify what is occurring beneath the surface while building actionable tools that support greater consistency, resilience, and clarity. Specialized areas of focus include:

• Trauma & Dissociative Recovery: Advanced clinical care for complex trauma, PTSD, developmental trauma, and navigating dissociative symptoms or emotional numbing.
• Mood & Stress Management: Practical frameworks to alleviate chronic anxiety, panic states, systemic burnout, persistent depression, and periods of low motivation.
• Emotional Regulation & Coping: Developing tailored everyday coping strategies to balance the nervous system and manage intense emotional states.
• Identity, Masculinity & Role Expectations: Focused support exploring modern masculinity, identity development, societal or professional expectations, and male-specific mental health hurdles.
• Life Transitions & Academic Pressure: Guiding college students and professionals through high-stress adjustments, life transitions, and processing complex grief and loss.

Rebecca’s clinical specialization lies in working dynamically with individuals, couples, and groups, effectively addressing diverse, intersectional challenges related to trauma, addiction, anxiety, and depression. Additionally, she offers specialized clinical insight into treating eating disorders and resolving complex relationship difficulties. It is her enduring professional commitment to creating a safe, validating, and liberating space for LGBTQIA+ individuals, providing a deeply nurturing environment for sustainable healing and authentic personal growth.

Rebecca’s clinical approach is deeply collaborative, grounded, and evidence-based. She intentionally incorporates comprehensive psychoeducation on the neurobiology of trauma and chronic stress, helping clients thoroughly understand how the brain and autonomic nervous system actively shape somatic symptoms like acute anxiety, emotional reactivity, physiological shutdown, and dissociation. To support long-term healing, she integrates modern, trauma-informed modalities such as Internal Family Systems (IFS), Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). Sessions are highly structured yet flexible, featuring regular collaborative reflections on session content to ensure the therapeutic work remains tightly aligned with each client’s specific milestones.

Deeply valuing client autonomy, she actively welcomes feedback throughout every stage of the therapeutic process. Therapy is strictly paced to the client’s individual comfort level, ensuring they are never expected to share more than they are ready to process. She views the therapeutic relationship as the central pillar of effective psychological work and continuously prioritizes creating an environment where clients feel profoundly respected, verified, and supported.

Background, Education & Advanced Academic Research

Rebecca brings an exceptional level of academic rigor and advanced scientific training to her practice at 2nd Story Counseling. She earned her Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Northwestern University and is presently a PhD student in Counselor Education and Supervision. This advanced doctoral track ensures her clinical frameworks are consistently informed by the highest level of contemporary research, clinical leadership, and evidence-based practice. Burt holds credentials as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and a National Certified Counselor (NCC).