Lila Olson
LCMHCA
Lila Olson (she/her) is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Associate who earned a master’s in clinical mental health counseling from North Carolina State University. She has served in the community mental health field for over three years as a crisis text line volunteer and individual therapist, while spending her summers implementing literacy and emotional regulation programs for elementary schoolers.
Growing up in a single-parent household, Lila struggled to manage powerful feelings of anxiety and fear regarding her uncertain future. As an adolescent, Lila blamed herself for not being able to cope with these overwhelming emotions. With time and reflection, Lila has come to understand how traumatic childhood experiences can have lasting and complex effects that continue into adulthood. Caring for one’s mental health is not something about which to feel ashamed. Lila chose to enter the mental health field to support those who may be struggling and unsure of where to turn, wishing to provide a safe place for people to explore the source of their pain, including systemic oppression rooted in racism, heterosexism, ableism, and classism.
As a life-long resident of Raleigh, NC, Lila is passionate about supporting her local community’s needs. She takes an integrative approach to counseling, incorporating aspects of person-centered, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), psychodynamic, and feminist therapy to meet each individual where they are. She believes that, while humans may share fundamental experiences such as pain, tension, and estrangement, the support that each person needs is unique to them and their situation. Therefore, each person requires a tailored arrangement of therapeutic components.
Lila works with adults of all ages and has a special interest in supporting womxn-identifying and non-binary individuals. Lila is a queer woman and is further devoted to working with BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ populations, as well as parents, primary caregivers, and college students.
