Michelle Piper, LMFT
Michelle Piper is a consultant, educator, and coercive-control subject-matter expert. She is a California Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with 27 years of clinical experience.
Her work has included psychotherapy and consultation with adults, families, adolescents, executives, healthcare professionals, first responders, military personnel, creatives, and individuals functioning in demanding or high-responsibility environments.
Her professional focus includes coercive control, interpersonal trauma, post-traumatic stress, abuse recovery, crisis intervention, and the restoration of agency following relationships characterized by domination, manipulation, intimidation, or exploitation.
Piper has a particular interest in how coercive-control patterns can be misunderstood when individual incidents are viewed in isolation. Her work emphasizes context, sequence, repetition, dependency, retaliation, and functional impact when evaluating patterns of abuse.
Her approach combines decades of clinical experience with trauma-informed practice, family-systems training, application of current research, and specialized expert-witness education.
Consultation and expert-witness services are non-clinical and are separate from psychotherapy services.
Education
Northwestern University
Bachelor of Science, Human Development and Social Policy
Concentration in Integrated Arts
Cum Laude
California State University, Northridge
Master of Science, Counseling
Human Development, Family Studies and Related Services
Summa Cum Laude
CV available upon request.
