Lauren Worth Poiroux, M.S., LPC

12/11/2025

During stressful times, sometimes we have to mix our various obligations and stressors with our self-care! I’m finishing my final paper for the semester, but I’m taking advantage of the beautiful day so I actually enjoy the process instead of dreading it! This holiday season demands a lot from us, so make sure you take some time to do something that helps keep your cup filled, but doesn’t add to your stress!

12/02/2025

At the end of November I attended the Alabama Counseling Association's annual conference in Birmingham, AL with Annsley Zimlich, M.S, ALC! I loved learning from other practitioners and enhancing my counseling skills/knowledge, but the greatest treat was seeing my students from The University of South Alabama Counselor education program present their research at the graduate poster session. It is an honor to be able to be a tiny part of these future counselors journey as they grow closer to graduation!

12/02/2025

At the end of November I attended the Alabama Counseling Association's annual conference in Birmingham, AL! I loved learning from other practitioners and enhancing my counseling skills/knowledge, but the greatest treat was seeing my students from The University of South Alabama Counselor education program program present their research at the graduate poster session. It is an honor to be able to be a tiny part of these future counselors journey as they grow closer to graduation!

11/07/2025

💞

Annsley Zimlich and Lauren Poiroux Harvey have recently completed all of the necessary requirements set by the Alabama Board of Examiners in Counseling to become Licensed Professional Counselors. We are so proud of all their accomplishments!

09/24/2025

I am so excited that I was able to be a part of such an awesome conversation with the folks at Gulf Regional Early Childhood Services on their UNrattled podcast! We talked all about boundary setting, empathetic parenting, and how calm doesn't mean passive. This deep dive can be found here for a listen: https://www.unrattledpodcast.com/

If you ever want to feel not so alone in the journey that is parenting, I would invite you to check out UNrattled to hear relevant, vulnerable, and informative conversations about the topics that aren't always talked about.

07/25/2025

I am thrilled to announce that I have completed the licensure process and have been approved by the board, so I am officially a Licensed Professional Counselor!

After graduating from the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at the University of South Alabama, I had to complete 3,000 supervised hours before I was eligible to apply for full licensure. Supervision is an incredibly important and wonderful part of the counselor journey, and I have could not asked for a better one than Sara Kennedy. I could not have done this without her, and I will forever be grateful for her knowledge, support, and patience.

I will have more updates to come regarding insurance, schedule, etc., but for now, thank you to everyone who has supported me throughout this journey. I am filled with gratitude and excitement for this new chapter.

07/22/2025

Summer, for some, is fun in the sun and relaxing. For others, it can be a stressful and difficult time. Whatever summer looks like for you, taking time to attend to unmet needs is key to helping grow through the unpredictability of not just our summer weather, but of our lives.

06/12/2025

Self-care and creativity means sometimes you have to get your hands a little messy! I hope you’ve found some time to invest in your joy this week 💕

06/06/2025

I’ve been prioritizing taking time to engage in creativity and hobbies! It feels so often that I don’t have enough time in the day to do things like draw, but when I force myself to slow down and find the time, I always feel amazing after!

These drawings aren’t earth shattering in how well executed they are, they aren’t museum pieces. But wow do I feel proud every time I see them, because I’m proud I prioritized just doing something purely for fun instead of prioritizing the outcome.

I challenge you to do something that brings you joy this week, even if it isn’t “productive”. It’ll add so much to your week 🩵

06/05/2025

Happy Thursday! I hope you are having a peaceful, lovely day.

If you have a second, take a moment to savor something: the taste of your coffee, the smell of a candle, water droplets catching the light on a leaf. It’ll instill your day with gratitude and joy.

06/04/2025

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s an incredible lens to look through when considering wellness. Abraham Maslow posited that there are 5 areas of needs that we have, and only by satisfying each from the bottom up can we really start to deeply feel “wellness”.

The most basic need we need met is physiological needs: food, water, shelter. Until those needs are met, we can’t begin to feel safe and build our pyramid. When we feel safe, we then can meet our social needs: love and belonging. We need to have others in our life that care about us. Experiencing love and belonging then allows us to experience esteem, a need based in self-acceptance. When we accept and understand ourselves, we then are able to meet our final need: the need to self-actualize. This is the need to reach our fullest potential, to be the best version of ourself that’s possible.

What does this tell us? When we don’t have the needs of the bottom of our pyramid met, we don’t have the mental or emotional resources to try and meet the higher needs of our life.

This is a concept I use a lot in my sessions. Clients and I explore what needs aren’t met in their life and how they can get them met.

I had a lot of fun drawing/painting this.

06/03/2025

It’s magic to see how kids think. I did an art therapy activity with a child where we pulled a prompt card and had to each draw what it said with a time limit. We did this to work through frustration and to explore how it’s okay to not be perfect. No picture can be a masterpiece when you’re given 2 minutes to draw it, and this is an exercise in accepting being okay with that!

The coolest part of this activity is seeing how we interpreted the prompt differently. We were told to “draw a bike for an octopus”, and we had very different approaches. My picture, on the bottom, is very literal. An octopus on a bike. My client’s, the top, is imaginative. When explaining the drawing my client said that the bike is “supposed to look like the ocean”. I’d say they nailed it.