Shawn Mcgivern

Shawn Mcgivern is a licensed mental health counselor based in Massachusetts with 27 years of clinical experience supporting individuals and couples through a wide range of challenges. He works with people coping with stress and anxiety, depression and grief, trauma and abuse, relationship and family conflicts, eating and sleeping disorders, parenting and intimacy concerns, anger and self-esteem issues, career difficulties, and life transitions. He also offers coaching and works with LGBT clients across the lifespan.

He particularly enjoys working with couples on Regain who are committed to learning new, effective communication skills and who want to rediscover connections physically, mentally, and emotionally. His therapeutic manner is open, warm, empathic, compassionate, curious, humorous, and down-to-earth.

Shawn holds a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology and is licensed to practice mental health counseling in Massachusetts (license MA LMHC 6656). He integrates several modalities to match each person’s age, culture, values, beliefs, personality, and treatment goals, drawing from Humanistic, Cognitive Behavioral, Dialectical Behavior, Jungian, and Drama Therapy approaches, and he is happy to discuss these methods with prospective clients.

In addition to private practice, Shawn has served as a counselor and clinical supervisor at the Massachusetts College of Art and taught psychology and writing for 14 years at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA. He completed post-graduate training in Existential Therapy, earned a B.A. in English Literature from Boston College, studied classical voice at the Boston Conservatory, and explored Shambala Writing Meditation at the Naropa Institute of Poetics. Earlier in his career he worked as a freelance arts writer, including assignments for The Boston Globe, and promoted artists, writers, and performers for non-profit institutions such as the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Shawn welcomes clients of all ages, cultures, religious and spiritual practices, and gender identities and sexual orientations. He notes that substance use disorder is not one of his areas of specialization and that members seeking that focus are usually best served by a therapist trained in addiction. Clients should also be aware that same-day cancellations or no-shows will incur a cancellation fee. For couples using Regain who need technical assistance, he suggests following the platform’s troubleshooting instructions and contacting membership or the technical team if problems persist.