Mental health is the cornerstone of our overall well-being. It shapes how we manage stress, connect with others, and make decisions that affect every aspect of our lives. We are honored to introduce you to local mental health professionals whose unique expertise and compassionate care supports those facing life’s varied challenges.
Mental health is the cornerstone of our overall well-being. It shapes how we manage stress, connect with others, and make decisions that affect every aspect of our lives. We are honored to introduce you to local mental health professionals whose unique expertise and compassionate care supports those facing life’s varied challenges.
Mental wellness is fundamental to living a balanced and fulfilling life. It encompasses our emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing how we think, feel, and behave. Just as we care for our physical health, maintaining mental wellness is crucial at every stage of life, helping us manage stress, make decisions, and relate to the world around us.
Mental health issues can manifest in various ways, and recognizing the signs is the first step towards seeking help. Symptoms can be physical, emotional, or behavioral, and often develop gradually. Common signs include:
• PERSISTENT SADNESS OR LOW MOOD
Feeling down consistently or losing interest in activities once enjoyed can be signs of depression.
• EXCESSIVE FEARS OR WORRIES
Overwhelming feelings of anxiety that disrupt daily activities.
• SOCIAL WITHDRAWAL
Avoiding social interactions and activities that were previously enjoyable.
• CHANGE IN EATING OR SLEEPING HABITS
Significant weight loss or gain, insomnia, or excessive sleeping.
• MOOD SWINGS
Rapid and dramatic shifts in emotions that are difficult to manage.
• REDUCED ABILITY TO CONCENTRATE
Difficulty focusing on tasks at work or home.
• FEELINGS OF GUILT OR WORTHLESSNESS
Persistent self-criticism or feelings of being punished.
• UNEXPLAINED PHYSICAL AILMENTS
Increased physical complaints such as headaches, back pain, or stomach pain without a clear cause.
If you or someone you love is experiencing these symptoms persistently, it may be time to seek professional help. Mental health conditions are real, common, and treatable. They are not a sign of weakness or a character flaw. Knowing when to seek help is an indicator of strength and the first step towards recovery.
Mental health professionals can provide a safe space to explore these feelings and begin the path to improvement through therapies, medications, or a combination of treatments tailored to the individual’s needs.
Stigma around mental health persists, but seeking help is vital. It’s important to remember that mental health issues are not a choice or moral failing—they are medical conditions that require medical care. There is no shame in being diagnosed with a mental health disorder or seeking help.
In our community, we are fortunate to have access to skilled professionals who specialize in mental health care. These experts are here to help, equipped with the knowledge and compassion to support individuals through their journeys toward mental wellness.
Remember, mental health is just as important as physical health, and taking care of it is not just a necessity but a right. If you are struggling, reach out. Help is available, and recovery is possible. Let us support one another in fostering a community where mental wellness is prioritized, and everyone feels empowered to seek the help they need.
Imagine trying to build a house with just a hammer. You might drive in a few nails, but without a saw, level, or drill, your structure won’t last. The same is true for mental health and addiction recovery—one tool alone isn’t enough.
At Lumina at the Manor, a leading mental health and rehabilitation center in Arkansas, individuals receive a full set of tools to help rebuild their lives. Lumina provides a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to create lasting stability. Whether seeking support for addiction and mental health, or mental health treatment alone, Lumina offers tailored care.
Many believe overcoming mental health challenges or addiction is as simple as attending therapy, taking medication, or relying on willpower. But true recovery requires multiple tools working together.
When someone walks through Lumina’s doors, they may feel lost—overwhelmed by emotions, trauma, or addiction. Their old "tools" may no longer serve them, and they may not know where to start. That’s where Lumina steps in.
Lumina at the Manor provides specialized care based on individual needs. For those struggling with addiction and co-occurring mental health issues, Lumina offers a structured inpatient rehabilitation program, providing 24/7 support in a safe, healing environment. This includes medication management, provided by an addictionologist, to ensure proper medical support for recovery.
For those unable to enter residential treatment or who can manage their daily responsibilities while receiving care, we offer outpatient services. This option allows individuals— whether dealing with addiction, mental health concerns, or both—to receive professional support while continuing to navigate their personal and professional lives. However, outpatient services do not include psychiatric care or medication management.
THE MULTIFACETED MENTAL HEALTH TOOLBOX
THERAPY: THE MEASURING TAPE & LEVEL
Just like a measuring tape ensures precision in construction, therapy helps individuals assess where they are and where they need to go. Lumina offers Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) which helps individuals reframe negative thoughts, Trauma-Informed Therapy which addresses deep-rooted emotional wounds, and Group Therapy which provides a sense of shared experience and support. All are available for both inpatient and outpatient clients.
MEDICAL & PSYCHIATRIC SUPPORT: THE POWER TOOLS
For inpatient clients only, Lumina provides medication management through an addictionologist to help stabilize individuals during recovery. This ensures they receive the appropriate medical support as part of their rehabilitation. Outpatient services do not include psychiatric care or medication management.
ADDICTION REHABILITATION: THE NAIL GUN & REINFORCEMENTS
Substance abuse weakens the foundation of a person’s life, much like a house built with missing supports. Lumina’s inpatient rehabilitation program provides structured inpatient treatment, personalized recovery plans, and dual-diagnosis treatment for addiction & mental health.
Mental health and addiction recovery aren’t quick fixes— they are ongoing projects that require the right tools and continuous maintenance.
At Lumina at the Manor, individuals don’t just receive treatment; they receive a foundation for lifelong wellness. Whether someone is overcoming addiction or managing their mental health, Lumina provides the right tools, the right support, and the right team to help them build something stronger, more stable, and lasting.
If you or a loved one needs help, Lumina at the Manor is here to provide the tools for a brighter future.
3111 S. 70th St., Fort Smith 479.452.6650 / wacgc.org
The pressures and challenges of modern life are like never before, causing stress and anxiety in families from all neighborhoods and backgrounds. One River Valley mental health practice, The Guidance Center, is fighting back through Family Centered Treatment, a therapy program that helps families turn from dysfunction to more constructive ways of dealing with problems.
This type of treatment has been around for decades in the United States but has only recently been offered in Arkansas. Any family in which the parents/guardians are willing to participate, and in which the child in the home is a Medicaid Passe, is eligible for the treatment.
“We work with families as a whole,” says Shelby Fox, FCT program director for The Guidance Center in Fort Smith. “Technically, the program serves children between the ages of 4 and 17, but we're not working with just the kiddo. We work with the whole household, as the family defines it. If Grandma's over there three, four times a week helping pick up, drop off, and all that, she can participate if the family wants her included, even though she doesn't live there.”
Family Centered Treatment focuses on addressing the root causes of family problems that often drive children and youth into negative behaviors, such as problems in school or with authority, juvenile crime, and risky behaviors.
“There are many situations that children and youth go through where Family Centered Treatment can be useful,” Shelby says. “You've got behavioral issues, children who are
in the juvenile justice system, maybe they’re coming out of the foster care system, or have just recently been adopted. There are also children and teens who are undergoing other kinds of behavioral health treatment, such as residential or outpatient programs. Any of these situations can be difficult for young people to handle, causing them to act out.”
Family Centered Treatment is designed to be flexible enough to help serve children, youth, and their families, who are facing any number of issues and situations. The therapy steps include doing an in-depth assessment to determine what challenges the family is facing, setting goals for improvement, learning new and healthy ways to approach problems, and improving communication.
Trained personnel from The Guidance Center help families learn these new skills and keep them on track. The result? Family Centered Treatment has been shown to be effective in reducing the number of children removed from the home by creating safer, more stable home environments. More than a short-term fix, Family Centered Treatment is designed to equip families with the skills and knowledge to fix issues in the home permanently.
“A family is a system in itself, and it takes a system to heal a system,” Fox says. “The most important thing is that we are actually working with families inside the home. They're not coming to a clinic; they're not coming to any other building. We're meeting them in the home environment, where they live, and looking for ways to improve that environment for everyone involved.”
There is this terrible idea in our society that we must know all the answers. We must do everything ourselves and never ask for help. Women aren’t supposed to get angry. Men aren’t supposed to cry. Too often, people come to therapy in a last-ditch effort when the wheels of life have fallen off, and nothing else is working. But you don’t have to wait until your darkest hour to ask for help. You don’t have to walk this road alone.
With us, the therapy office is safe and confidential. It’s a place where you get to be who you are, free of judgment—period— and experience unconditional positive regard, empathy, and real talk. Therapy is largely about the healing that’s possible when two people are simply honest with each other. Because the truth changes things.
We understand you must “click” with your therapist to make real progress. We offer a diverse team of nineteen therapists
proficient in a variety of approaches, serving children, teens, and adults across therapies like individual sessions, relationship counseling, grief support, and life coaching. Our clients come to us with stories about everything from communication and boundary problems to loss, anxiety, depression, and trauma.
Letting go of personal burdens can be challenging, but a skilled therapist can help using tools like EMDR, which can be effectively applied to a variety of issues, such as relationship loss, toxic work environments, or pre-surgical anxiety—situations that may not seem traumatic but still cause significant stress.
Life can be hard, and you don’t need to carry baggage around forever. One goal of therapy is to increase self-awareness and learn more about our bodies, emotions, and relationships. Anchored Hope is there every step of the way to help on this journey. Visit us online, call, or listen to our podcast, Discovering with Dr. Deb (on all platforms).
y. Anchored Hope is there every step of the way.
Anchored Hope Counseling is a safe place for help, hope, and healing. Sometimes in life, it feels like you have nothing to hold on to. You can anchor your hope with us while you weather life’s storms. Our experienced therapists provide counseling for individuals (children, teens, and adults) as well as couples who may be facing obstacles on their journey. Call to start your journey!
Rachel Fiori, owner of Center for Psychiatric Wellness (CPW) and Fort Smith Northside alumna, finds deep satisfaction in seeing her patients progress through the therapies and treatments her practice provides. After seven years at a local hospital, she joined CPW in 2021 and acquired it in 2024. She is committed to a team-oriented approach to psychiatric assessments, counseling, medication management, and advanced interventional treatments for patients of all ages, from children to seniors.
The center offers a range of services including ketamine infusion therapy, trauma-informed therapy, EMDR, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Soon, it will also provide ADHD testing. One of the most exciting treatments is transcranial magnetic stimulation, a relatively new addition to the area.
"Many are unfamiliar with it, but it's a growing treatment for depression and anxious depression," she explains. “TMS uses a
magnetic current to produce an indirect electrical current that stimulates a specific part of the brain. It's particularly effective for those with depression who haven't benefited from traditional medications. For example, patients who've failed three psychiatric medications have an 80% chance of improvement and a 60% chance of complete wellness after TMS.”
Being able to bring relief to her patients is even more rewarding when working with fellow professionals who respect and support each other, specifically Dr. William Clint Kindrick, the four nurse practitioners, and six therapists at the center.
“One of the things that I really like is that we work as a team,” she says. “We are a physician-led psychiatric clinic where a lot of the psychiatric care is provided by our nurse practitioners. As a practice, we maintain a collaborative relationship to ensure we're working as a team to provide our patients the highest level of care.”
With decades of experience in the field of behavioral health, Fort Smith Therapy Health and Wellness is known for its high level of expertise, which serves an impressive array of patients, from children to adults to families.
Owner Donna Morgan said the practice strives to be different from the very first visit, starting with the environment.
"When someone first connects with us, even on their first phone call to set up an appointment, it's a welcoming experience," she says. "The staff is patient and kind, and speaking with them feels like talking to an old friend. They really put people at ease.
"As you enter our front door, the waiting room feels like someone's living room. It doesn't have a cold, clinical feel. We have nice music playing. I often hear from clients that our environment reduces the anxiety some people feel when seeking help."
Fort Smith Therapy Health and Wellness collaborates with ten therapists, ensuring a personalized match for every client and can tailor therapy to almost any budget. Care isn't limited by location, either, as therapists are licensed in multiple states and can connect remotely. Donna is one such therapist, licensed to treat patients in Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, Maine, and Florida. “All of us are certified to provide tele-therapy in various states,” she said. “If a client moves to a state where I am licensed, for instance, or if they’re just vacationing there and need something, I can see them.
"The most important thing in the therapist-client relationship is trust. The client must know they can come in and tell me anything, and I won't judge them. They also need to know that I will be available to them when they need me. That's not something you can just say; that's a promise you have to follow through on, and we try very hard to live up to that."
Struggling with Anxiety, Depression, or other Mental Health Challenges?
We are here to help you find peace, balance, and a renewed sense of well-being.
When Melanie Taylor founded Healing Tree Women’s Counseling Center, which specializes in therapy for women from teens to seniors, it fundamentally changed the landscape of mental health resources in the River Valley.
In addition to traditional therapy, medication management, hypnotherapy, and EMDR therapy, Melanie and her team set the bar even higher by offering intensive therapy. “Intensives are designed to unpack and work through a lot of stuff in a shorter amount of time,” she says. “It’s great for patients who have been working on the same issues and feel stuck.”
As the name implies, the therapy takes a more exhaustive approach to unpacking challenges. Sessions can run as long as 6 hours daily, for up to 3 days, during which the therapist leads the patient through years of work in a condensed timeframe. Melanie says many choose intensives when they are having difficulty getting to the underlying cause of their
problem and traditional therapy isn’t helping. “Usually, it's because there are emotional wounds underneath that haven’t been addressed,” she says. “Especially if there is abuse and trauma in their background, we can't always go as deep as we need to in a regular one-hour session.
“Intensives allow us to address emotional wounds in a way that helps heal them, instead of just opening things up a little bit, talking about it, then packing it back up. Intensive therapy takes a larger chunk of time, during which we will do ten years of work. We cut right to what the patient needs.”
Melanie has experienced the benefits as a clinician and firsthand, as a client. “I started offering this after I experienced it myself,” she says. “I had been stuck for years, and after a 2-day intensive, there was a night-and-day difference. I felt like I finally uncovered who I was underneath all the wounds I’d been carrying. I call it emotional surgery.”
Mind and Body Wellness, LLC (MBWFTS) welcomes everyone to our inclusive healthcare clinic. Our mission is to embrace people for who they are, where they are, and offer mental health and healthcare services that allow you to become the best version of yourself, however that looks to you. Your mental and physical health matters to us!
As a team we will achieve Mind and Body Wellness to the best of our abilities, together. We use best practices with licensed providers in a safe environment utilizing brief psychotherapy, medication management, counseling, goal setting, therapy, testing/evaluations, and referrals to achieve optimal wellness and continuity of care in a non-judgmental environment.
Our approach to mental health care revolves around the core principles of "Evaluate, Educate, Treat." We believe in the power of a well-rounded and patient-centered strategy that is focused on your unique needs.
We take the time to truly understand your story and strive to create a safe and open space for you to express your thoughts, feelings, and concerns. Our experienced and compassionate team of mental health professionals will work closely with you to assess your mental health needs comprehensively.
We believe that knowledge is a powerful tool on the path to healing. We will provide you with a deeper understanding of your mental health condition, the available treatment options, and the strategies that can help you cope with your challenges effectively. We work collaboratively with you to develop the skills and knowledge necessary for your journey to recovery.
We offer a range of evidence-based therapeutic interventions and modalities to address your unique needs. Whether you require individual counseling, group therapy, medication management, or a combination of these approaches, we are here to provide the care and support you need.
Your mental and physical health is our top priority. We offer a compassionate, inclusive approach to healthcare, welcoming everyone to a safe space where you can thrive. Our dedicated team utilizes best practices in psychotherapy, medication management, and counseling to help you face life’s challenges with strength. We offer in-person and telemedicine appointments. Serving all of Arkansas.
We accept most commercial insurances including Arkansas Medicaid and Medicare. Genesight & Spravato Certified Location. Serving ages 10+.
Cultivating your mental wellness is as essential as maintaining your physical health. Here are practical, everyday tips to help enhance your mental well-being:
STAY ACTIVE: Regular physical activity can significantly reduce anxiety and depression. Even a short walk can lift your mood.
CONNECT WITH OTHERS: Building strong, healthy relationships can help you feel more secure and supported.
PRACTICE MINDFULNESS: Mindfulness techniques, such as meditation or deepbreathing exercises, can improve your emotional well-being.
GET ENOUGH SLEEP: Sleep profoundly affects your psychological state. Strive for 7-9 hours per night to improve concentration and regulate mood.
SET REALISTIC GOALS: Decide what you want to achieve academically, professionally, or personally, and write down the steps you need to realize your goals.
LIMIT SCREEN TIME: Reducing the time spent on electronic devices can improve your sleep and reduce feelings of isolation.
By integrating these tips into your daily life, you can build a stronger foundation for your mental health, helping to ensure a happier, more balanced life.
This guide does not encompass all mental health providers in our area. However, it highlights a remarkable selection of dedicated professionals in our region who are committed to delivering essential mental health services to our community.
ANCHORED HOPE COUNSELING
4200 Jenny Lind Rd., Ste. C, Fort Smith 479.561.7600 / anchoredhopecounseling.net
CENTER FOR PSYCHIATRIC WELLNESS
7217 Cameron Park Dr., Fort Smith 479.831.6007 / centerforpsychiatricwellness.com
FORT SMITH THERAPY, HEALTH AND WELLNESS
2408 S. 51st Ct., Ste. G, Fort Smith 479.323.2424 / fortsmiththerapy.com
HEALING TREE WOMEN’S COUNSELING CENTER
5004 S. U St., Ste. 100, Fort Smith, Arkansas 479.883.2223 / healingtreetherapy.com
LUMINA AT THE MANOR 3909 AR-282, Van Buren / 479.242.1003 / luminabh.com
MIND AND BODY WELLNESS
720 Lexington Ave., Fort Smith 479.910.3169 / mbwfts.com
THE GUIDANCE CENTER
3111 S. 70th St., Fort Smith / 479.452.6650 / wacgc.org