Laura Scales

Laura Scales brings a practical and compassionate approach to therapy, helping individuals, couples, and families work toward greater healing and wholeness. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Colorado (license CO LMFT 0001388) and has five years of clinical experience addressing a wide range of concerns including relationship issues, grief, anger management, self-esteem, depression, stress, anxiety, addictions, LGBTQ matters, family conflict, trauma and abuse, intimacy-related issues, parenting challenges, career difficulties, and bipolar disorder.

Before becoming a therapist, Laura followed several other careers that shaped her perspective on resilience and recovery. She cared for people with chronic illness and severe disabilities as a home health aide, taught rock climbing, ice climbing, sea kayaking, and swimming to diverse groups, and worked with older adults to enhance quality of life in a senior living community. Those experiences inform her belief that change is often painful but can also be deeply transformational.

Her time as a high-altitude mountaineer, including summiting Mt. Aconcagua at 22,837 feet - the highest point in the western hemisphere - taught her the value of being fully present, even if only for a single moment. That practice of presence influences her work in therapy and her emphasis on mindful engagement with life.

Laura completed a master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy at Argosy University in Denver and did her practicum at West Springs Psychiatric Hospital. She later worked in a community mental health outpatient clinic where she served as an intake, individual, and group therapist. In private practice she offers a nonjudgmental space for clients to explore problems, consider solutions, and reexamine relationships that no longer serve them.

Her clinical approach is empowering and collaborative - she views each person as the expert on their own life and supports them in making informed choices. Laura is trained in several evidence-based modalities including Internal Family Systems Therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, and solution-focused and strength-based practices. She works with clients on managing conflict, coexisting physical and mental health conditions, and navigating stressful life adjustments.

Laura believes that mental well-being is closely connected to the quality of personal relationships - stronger connections often bring greater happiness and life satisfaction. When she is not practicing therapy she spends as much time as possible in the natural world, absorbing its many gifts.