Zoya Picklesimer

Zoya Picklesimer, LCMHC, LCAS, CCS, has made Wilmington, North Carolina, home and brings nearly 15 years of experience helping people navigate life’s transitions. She works with adults, especially college students, busy professionals, and women balancing the many demands of work, as well as couples with a focus on anxiety, parenting, relationships, and family life. Her style is enthusiastic, compassionate, and down to earth.

Zoya believes therapy is about understanding yourself and your relationships so you can feel more connected to the life you are building. She works collaboratively with clients to recognize patterns, reconnect with their strengths, and develop practical ways to manage challenges. Her approach includes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), narrative therapy, positive psychology, and the Gottman Method, with care tailored to each client’s needs and goals.

Zoya specializes in helping adults navigate anxiety and reconnect with themselves. When you are the person everyone depends on, it can be easy to put your own needs last. Between work, family, and everyday responsibilities, you may find yourself feeling overwhelmed, overthinking everything, or wondering when you stopped making time for yourself. Zoya helps clients explore what drives their anxiety, understand the patterns behind it, and make room for their own needs and values. Therapy offers a space to slow down, build self understanding, and find a more balanced way of moving through life.

She also specializes in helping couples rebuild emotional connection. When work, parenting, and daily responsibilities take over, relationships can begin to feel more like managing a household than being partners. You may still love each other but miss the closeness, fun, and sense of teamwork you once shared. Zoya helps couples understand the patterns that create distance, strengthen communication, and rediscover what brought them together. As a Gottman Level 3 trained clinician, she supports couples in finding practical ways to reconnect and build a relationship that feels meaningful to both partners.

Zoya also works with parents who want to understand their own experiences and build healthier family relationships. Parenting can bring up feelings and patterns from your own childhood, especially when you want to do things differently from the way you were raised. You may question your reactions, feel overwhelmed by expectations, or worry about getting things wrong. Zoya helps parents explore these experiences, develop greater confidence in their choices, and build relationships with their children that reflect their values. The goal is not to be a perfect parent, but to understand yourself and make more intentional choices about the kind of parent you want to be.

Fun Facts: Zoya owns three businesses and loves to travel whenever she can.