Hello! I’m Benita A. Esposito, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Georgia and a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor in North Carolina.  

My profile has been certified by PsychologyToday.com.

I’ve been a psychotherapist, life coach, and spiritual counselor to high-achieving men and women for four decades. I specialize in working with highly sensitive people and couples. I graduated with a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology in 1976 from Illinois State University and an I also earned an undergraduate degree in psychology.

Clients learn how to heal emotional wounds that have kept them mired down in stress, anxiety, grief, trauma, or depression. But that’s only half of it. My clients also learn how to create truly flourishing lives. A focus on self-actualization drives my decisions personally and professionally.

We use holistic body-mind-emotion-spirit tools to develop personal mastery. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence foster career success. Higher self-esteem helps clients set clear boundaries for self-care without guilt. Healthy relationships blossom so conflicts end in win-win solutions. Depression evaporates as clients become the conscious creative force in their lives.

Nature’s beauty brings me closer to God and uplifts me in the good times and in the bad times. I love living near the top of a mountain nestled in a national forest. My home overlooks a serene lake surrounded by ripples of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I designed my house to host weekend retreats, my most effective transformational format. Facilitating retreats is my superpower. One client reported that she made more changes in two days than in five years of therapy with other providers.

Nowadays you can find me rowing my 21-foot rowing shell on the lake. Or hiking under a canopy of giant trees along a rushing stream to a waterfall. Or nurturing my prolific flower gardens. My cat, Bucky, is a frequent visitor in therapy sessions – if you like cats. He maintains better eye contact than most humans, and he plays catch with the best of them.

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Specialties

1. Brainspotting and other experiential holistic counseling methods access unconscious material so clients heal at depth.
2. Couples Counseling helps people create secure attachment bonds, and heals the wounds that have caused attachment breaches.
3. Counseling Highly Sensitive Introverts is one of my greatest joys. If you’d like to get to know me, read my bestselling book. It’s a memoir and teaching stories: The Gifted Highly Sensitive Introvert: Wisdom for Emotional Healing and Expressing Your Radiant Authentic Self available on Amazon. Take the quiz to see if you are a highly sensitive introvert: www.SensitiveIntrovert.com.

Licenses and Certifications

• • Georgia Licensed Professional Counselor license #000300
  • North Carolina Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor #15664
  • Certified Brainspotting Therapist
  • Certificate of Specialization in TeleMental Health Counseling (distance counseling by video conference)
  • Certified Grief Counseling Specialist
  • Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist
  • Certified Prepare/Enrich Facilitator. Customized reports guide pre-marital couples into relevant conversations about their strengths, growth areas, and potential blind spots.
  • Gottman 7 Principles Program Leader. I lead public and private workshops for couples based on Drs. John and Julie Gottman’s 40 years of research and therapy for creating flourishing relationships.

Advanced Training

• • Gottman Method Couples Therapy. Level 3 of 3 professional training programs.
  • Gottman Leadership Program. I help couples develops strong healthy committed relationships via a psycho-educational format.
  • Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT) with Dr. Sue Johnson. I completed the 4-day EFT Externship Program and Core Skills, which is a year-long training program along with ten supervised sessions required for certification.
  • The Highly Sensitive Person. I’ve been approved by Dr. Elaine Aron to provide psychotherapy for Highly Sensitive People. Visit www.SensitiveIntrovert.com.
• A few of the post-graduate courses I’ve taken over four decades:
  • Brainspotting: Phase 1, 2, 3, 4, the Masters class with Dr. David Grand, and Limbic Counter-transference along with several others.

• • Somatic Experiencing  – Dr. Peter A. Levine
  • Attachment theory and practice – Dr. Diane Poole Heller
  • Motivational interviewing – Dr. Bill Miller
  • Internal Family Systems – Dr. Richard Schwartz
  • Neuroscience – Dr. Steven Porges and others
  • Healing trauma and PTSD – numerous practitioners
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
  • Mindfulness
  • Meditation tools
  • Life Coaching, success skills, and adult education skills

Masters Thesis in Clinical Psychology

Fascinated with the untapped potential of human beings, my master’s thesis researched methods of pain elimination without drugs. This began the life-long passion for holistic mind-body-spirit-emotional healing and psychoneuroimmunology (the power of our mind and spirit to affect our bodies).

PhD courses in Community/Organizational Psychology at Georgia State University, 1982.

Professional Memberships

• • Georgia Licensed Professional Counselor Association
  • North Carolina Licensed Clinical Mental Health Association
  • The International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy
  • Atlanta Center for Emotionally Focused Therapy
  • The Association for the Integration of the Whole Person, Ordained Minister since 1992

Career Experience: After launching my career as an outpatient psychotherapist with Catholic Social Services in Iowa, I worked at Ozark Mental Health Center in Joplin, Missouri as a Community Services Professional. I designed, marketed and delivered adult education courses for the general public, facilitated community organization projects, appeared on TV and radio shows, and did a lot of public speaking.

I opened my private practice in Georgia in 1986, specializing in psychotherapy for adult individuals and couples. Throughout my career, I have facilitated therapy groups and intensive weekend retreats for the purpose of developing healthy relationships, deep emotional healing and excavating the Authentic Self.

Strengths: I’m a Highly Sensitive Introvert and an INFJ on the Myers Briggs. INFJs compose 1% of the population. Combining intuition and logic, I get to the bottom line quickly to help clients create flourishing personal and professional relationships. I am a visionary, and I can predict the future based on the patterns I see. I like to blend evidence-based research with a heartfelt spirit.

I especially enjoy helping other high-achieving, highly sensitive people. (Google Dr. Elaine Aron’s research.) We are conscientious, compassionate, creative and empathetic. We love making our contribution to uplift the quality of life on the planet. “Service” is our middle name.

Visit SensitiveIntrovert.com to learn more about how I help the Highly Sensitive Person.