Home / Meet the Therapists / Abby Alldread
Abby Alldread,
LCMHC, LCAS
Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist. Relationships and family systems, life transitions, and faith integration in adults 18 and up.
You don’t have to keep holding it together in here.
Brainspotting
Trauma and attachment
Faith-integrated
Substance use and families
Religious and spiritual trauma
Currently accepting new clients. Book online, email info@allorarise.com, or call or text the office at 910-408-2302.
You’ve been the one holding it together. The middle-man, the translator, the person everyone calls. It worked for a long time, and then it stopped working, because nobody was ever attending to you.
Nobody is going to ask you to justify why now. If it has been years, that is common, and it doesn’t make the work any less available to you.
Being the one who holds it together isn’t a personality. It’s a role you learned somewhere, and you can put it down.
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Abby Alldread is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist at Allora Rise Counseling and Therapy, seeing adults 18 and up at the practice’s Cargo District office in Wilmington. Most of her clients arrive carrying an internal wound, whether from a specific traumatic event or from attachment inside their family, a relationship, or with themselves. It shows up as substance use, relationship conflict, or some mix of anxiety, anger, and depression. What they usually say is that they feel stuck and need something to move.
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She works most often with three things.
Relationships and family systems
Whatever brought you in probably formed in a relationship, in your family, with a partner, or in how you came to see yourself. It shows up as conflict, or substance use, or anxiety and anger, and the presenting problem is rarely where the work ends up. Abby works one-to-one rather than with both partners in the room, and much of it is relationship work: what you’re carrying into a partnership, and the family patterns that keep repeating no matter who tries to change them.
Life transitions
The seasons where who you were doesn’t fit where you’ve ended up. A divorce or separation, becoming a parent, or coming through something that changed you, and then having to work out who you’re becoming on the other side of it.
Faith integration
If you want it here, your faith becomes part of the work rather than a separate conversation. That includes the parts people are careful not to say out loud: doubt, anger at God, guilt that won’t lift, and being hurt by a church that was supposed to be safe. None of it has to be resolved before you bring it in.​
Beyond those three, Abby also works with anxiety and panic, OCD, depression, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) including childhood and sexual trauma, religious and spiritual trauma, grief and traumatic loss, disordered eating and body image, substance use and recovery, ADHD, and self-esteem.
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Outside what she treats, Abby has particular depth with two communities: the families and loved ones of someone struggling with addiction, and college students.
Clients describe Abby as creative, quirky, and direct in a way that opens things up rather than putting them on guard.
Abby is Spirit2Spirit Trauma Certified and has training in Brainspotting, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), somatic and nervous system approaches, Emotionally Focused Therapy, motivational interviewing, and person-centered therapy. She also has additional training in eating disorders and substance use.
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Abby believes therapy should be tailored to the person sitting in front of her. Sometimes that means talking through what’s happening in your life; other times, it means slowing down and paying attention to what your body is telling you. She may use Brainspotting or other body-based approaches when past experiences seem to be showing up as anxiety, tension, or feelings that are difficult to put into words. She may use “parts work” to help you understand the different sides of yourself that can feel pulled in different directions. If you know something needs to change but aren’t quite sure you’re ready, she can help you explore that without judgment or pressure. And if you’ve spent a long time feeling defined by a diagnosis, past experience, or other people’s expectations, she can help you look at your story from a different perspective.
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Her approach to therapy is genuinely experiential and creative. A session might involve talking, writing, art, visualization, movement, or using objects and other visual tools to better understand what you’re experiencing. Sometimes therapy might even involve recreating an old situation in the room so you can look at it from a new perspective. Abby believes therapy doesn’t always have to look or feel like a traditional conversation; sometimes doing something a little different is what helps things finally click.
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Abby will encourage you to be honest, curious, and willing to explore, while respecting that you are always in control of what you share and what you’re ready to work on. Her goal isn’t to tell you who you should be; it’s to help you better understand yourself, work through what’s getting in your way, and build a life that feels more like your own.
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She’s from Memphis, is passionate about art and anything outdoors, and has done her own intensive work as a trauma survivor relearning who she was afterward.
Your first session
Abby starts by naming how hard it is to walk through the door at all, and that you’ve already done one of the most difficult parts. She names it plainly: you’re two strangers in a room, and you can share as much or as little as you want, because there’s time. From there she asks about your attachments, your family, and your support system, and about faith if that’s part of your life, which usually opens onto how you handle control. She will also explain how she works, so the experiential side is never a surprise.
Whether Abby is your fit
Abby’s work is with adults, one-to-one, and it asks something of you. She’s direct, she will challenge the things that aren’t working, and her methods are hands-on rather than purely conversational. Clients who want that tend to move quickly with her.
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If that is what brought you here, a free fifteen-minute consultation with Abby is the fastest way to know. If you would rather have a quieter space to talk things through week to week, email info@allorarise.com or call or text 910-408-2302, and we’ll point you to the therapist here who works that way.
PRACTICAL DETAILS
INSURANCE
Aetna
Blue Cross Blue Shield NC
UnitedHealthcare
Tricare, as a certified provider
SELF-PAY
Private pay accepted
Superbill provided on request for out-of-network
SEES
Individuals
Adults 18 and up
WHERE
2202 Wrightsville Ave
Suite 111
Wilmington, NC 28403
Telehealth throughout North Carolina