Teela Ruehle, LMSW

Teela Ruehle is a licensed social worker in Michigan with five years of clinical experience. She focuses on helping people move through major life changes, grief, stress, and challenges tied to identity and relationships. Teela works in a collaborative way and treats each person as the expert in their own story.

She often uses cognitive behavioral therapy, which looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions connect. Teela also draws on EMDR for trauma-related work and motivational interviewing to help people find internal reasons to change. These approaches are blended to match what each person needs in the room.

Sessions are conversational and goal-oriented. Teela helps clients set small, practical steps and then checks progress together. She pays attention to emotional safety while helping people practice new skills between sessions.

Teela has experience with LGBTQ issues, workplace stress, compassion fatigue, and matters around intimacy and self-esteem. She also supports people facing fatherhood questions, first responder strains, immigration concerns, and financial stress. She frames these topics as real-life problems to work through rather than labels.

People can expect straightforward guidance, short-term plans when helpful, and space to process loss or trauma. Teela’s approach aims to balance practical tools with emotional support so clients can move toward clearer goals.

How these approaches translate to online therapy

Teela commonly uses cognitive behavioral therapy, which focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing small behavior changes to reduce symptoms like anxiety and low mood. She also integrates EMDR when trauma memories are a central concern, using structured processing to lessen the intensity of distressing memories.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. Teela collaborates with each person to choose methods that fit their goals, history, and comfort level. That might mean starting with skill-building through CBT, and then adding EMDR or motivational interviewing as needs evolve.

Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to make therapy more flexible. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues, phone sessions can be a good option when bandwidth is limited, live chat supports brief check-ins, and messaging can help maintain momentum between meetings. These options make it easier to schedule sessions around work, caregiving, or travel while keeping therapy consistent.