Julie Justus, LCSW
(*Currently not accepting new clients)
Julie Justus, LCSW, is a licensed psychotherapist who is intensively trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy. She currently works primarily with children, adolescents and young adults. Julie has experience working on DBT clinical teams in two of the top residential treatment centers in the country, Skyland Trail and Hillside Hospital. She finds herself at home in the realm of working with clients suffering from trauma, unstable moods, depression, anxiety, relationship chaos, impassivity, emotional turmoil, self harm, and finding life overall not being worth living. She currently is a therapist at Hillside Hospital and has the pleasure of working with a diverse population of adolescents and their caregivers from Atlanta and all over the USA. She continues to have a passion for working with young adults to help them live up to their full potential.
Julie values most the relationship with her clients. Her non-judgmental stance and natural inclination towards acceptance make her ideal for working with those struggling with self-esteem issues. Mindfulness and Compassion-based work are central to her approach and she is currently in the process of becoming a CBCT (Cognitively-Based Compassion Training) teacher through the Center for Contemplative Sciences at Emory University. Julie loves to incorporate humor and creativity into her work with clients. She is excellent at finding the balance between helping clients not take themselves so seriously and helping them hold themselves accountable. Julie believes that by facing reality head on (with a gentle guide) clients can decrease suffering and work towards the ultimate goal of building a life that's worth getting out of bed for.
Julie is able to offer Animal Assisted Therapy interventions by request in individual therapy. She and her Golden Retriever Leia are a registered therapy team through PetPartners. They love practicing DBT skills and providing validation with clients. Julie also loves group work and prides herself on bringing joy into DBT groups. She is an avid believer in experiential learning and gets clients active in the learning process.
Julie is an animal, art, and music lover. She loves being in the mountains, crafting with friends, and seeing live music. She also is a huge gymnastics fan and spends much of her free time following her favorite athletes and teams as they compete.
If you feel that we would be a good fit, please feel free to contact me at Julie@eastatlantacounseling.com. Julie is located at our Decatur location for in-person sessions and telehealth.