Exploring Life & Business with Dr Melissa Gressner of Dr Melissa Gressner – Live Core Confident

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr Melissa Gressner.

Hi Dr Melissa, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Like many college students I thought I wanted a certain career but that changed my freshman year. I’ve always loved science and was drawn to medical careers – for the longest time I wanted to be a dentist – then I wanted to work in a lab doing medical research – but everything shifted for me when I took a general Psychology class freshman year and fell in love and started my desire to be a clinical psychologist. I went to graduate school right out of undergrad at 22 years old – probably a bit too young and in retrospect wish I would have taken a few years off between undergrad and grad school but thankfully it all worked out cause I here I am and I graduated with my doctorate in clinical psychology at 28 years old. I started my professional career working at university counseling centers. University counseling centers essentially function as community mental health centers and serve the entire student body, I loved both my training as a resident and then as a staff psychologist there. Many years later when I started my own private practice in 2012 here in Denver I knew I wanted to continue this sub-specialty of working with college and graduate level students and have continued to do so. And yet as I’ve grown both personally and professionally so have my specialties. My main specialty now is anxiety and increasing ones confidence. I also specialize in helping people have healthier relationships and healing from trauma, grief, and loss – and navigating the divorce process.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s been a reflection of life including some highs and lows. As mentioned earlier I think I started grad school quite young at 22 and just 3 months later graduating from college. Because of this I definitely had some lingering seniorities that carried to my first semester of grad school causing me to occasionally be late to class or miss a few assignments. My grad school advisor called me in – sat me down and gave me a serious talking to – which I truly needed – he helped me realize that I needed to do better and take grad school more seriously. To this day I am so thankful to him for confronting me in that way because it truly did help me step it up and succeed moving forward.
Another challenge for me was in starting my own therapy practice business in 2012. There were numerous challenges along the way – building a practice from the bottom up, learning how to manage a business when my graduate training only provided me my mental health academic training and no real business education ( hiring a business coach was key!), navigating the challenges of insurance/managed care & later transitioning my practice into a self-pay practice and not taking insurance because of the manage challenges managed care had on both me as a provider and my my clients , and trying to balance parenthood and being a new mom while building a practice. The most smooth part for me has been slowly building a network and community of colleagues along the way that has become my lifeline in helping support myself and my practice. Forming and maintaining these relationships along the way has been invaluable to my success.

As you know, we’re big fans of Dr Melissa Gressner – Live Core Confident. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
I’ve been a licensed clinical psychologist for 20 years now. The big “why” of why I became a psychologist was to reduce the stigma of mental illness and therapy in our society and this remains a core part of who I am both as a person and professional. My therapy practice is geared towards helping people become a better version of themselves mentally and emotionally so they can find more contentment and peace within their life and relationships. I specialize in anxiety management, confidence and self-esteem building, improving ones relationships with themself and others, and in healing from trauma, grief, and loss. I work with adults and teens on these issues. -and have a subspecialty of working with college and graduate students – as well as those navigating and healing from divorce and relationship loss. A goal of mine throughout my career and as a business owner has to be approachable, relatable, and down to earth. I do believe at times my field of psychology and mental health as made many feel intimidated by the way we approach treatment and research. For example, there are many types of psychological theoretical approaches that inform therapy and treatment – they all have value in different settings and for different presenting concerns but repeatedly we see that the thing that provides the most amount of change for people when in therapy is the stable healthy therapeutic relationship. That is why finding a “good fit” between a therapist and client is so important for clients growth and change and overall satisfaction in therapy. Because of this I aim to meet my clients where they are at, be down to earth and relatable and overall be a human with them in the room and not a “doctor” telling them how to be different. We work as a team to make the changes they want and I walk side by side with them – rather than in front of them. Over the years clients consistently tell me that they like working with me because of this – because I am relatable and approachable and not overly academic or lecturing to them. I believe being my authentic human self with them in the therapy room is what makes me unique and clients are most drawn to.
A huge personal and professional passion of mine is helping clients grow their confidence. I believe that a strong sense of self and belief in your abilities can bring about great changes in ones life. I’ve experience it myself, the research backs it up – and I’ve witnessed in my clients over the years. I refer to it as core confidence.
“Core Confidence is trusting yourself and feeling strong and secure in who you are both inside and out. Many buy into the myth that people are either born with confidence, or they are not. But in truth, confidence is learnable, adjustable and capable of reconnection. Other people may mistake strong confidence with arrogance. Yet in reality, confident people attract others with their warmth and trust while arrogance turns us off and creates disconnection.”
Over the years I have been working on how to pull this all together into a book that I hope to write someday to be able to help more people improve their overall confidence.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
My hope is the the stigma of accessing mental health care will continue to diminish and it will be more normalized over time. I do believe that is happening, I often have parents of teens calling to get their teens into therapy saying that it seems the youth today are much more open about therapy and the importance of mental emotional health.
However, there continue to be many challenges of people accessing good mental health care in our county – this is a complex issue with many things at play both socioeconmically and politically.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://drgressner.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drmelissag/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-gressner-psyd-b8181611
• Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/melissa-m-gressner-denver-co/111341

Image Credits
Laura Mahony Photography

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