Dawn Sopron, LCSW
Dawn Sopron is a psychotherapist and yoga educator with more than 30 years of experience. Throughout her career, she has helped people navigate emotional and relational challenges through a trauma-informed approach to healing. Dawn has experience providing care in a variety of different settings, including hospitals, mental health clinics, home health and hospice, and since 1993 – her own private practice, Clay Pot Counseling. In addition to her LCSW, Dawn has held a certification in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) since 1997 and is a registered and certified yoga instructor through the Yoga Alliance and Surya Chandra Healing Yoga School. As a yoga instructor, she has facilitated several Women’s Gentle Yoga and Music Retreats throughout the Mountain West and taught online yoga-themed workshops.
Since 2020, Dawn’s counseling practice has been exclusively telehealth serving clients throughout Wyoming and Illinois. Dawn first learned about telehealth in 2018 from a friend that worked at the Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center in Sheridan. There, she discovered that the federal government had partnered with a telehealth company to deliver remote patient services. Around the same time, she recognized that many of her Medicare clients faced medical challenges that made traveling to an in-person appointment difficult. Telehealth offered a practical solution by improving access to care for these individuals. She later learned about the Wyoming Telehealth Network (WyTN) through contact with the University of Wyoming. The network was an ideal fit, as several of her clients had moved away from Sheridan but wanted to continue receiving services from her. She applied to join WyTN immediately.
In 2020, Dawn relocated to Illinois. Telehealth allowed her to seamlessly continue providing therapy to her existing clients in Wyoming, while also expanding her reach to serve individuals in her new home state. As a result, virtual care became the primary focus of her practice. Managing clients across two time zones requires thoughtful scheduling, which she describes as one of the biggest adjustments in implementing telehealth. Although she considers herself highly comfortable with technology, she continues to utilize an analog planner to keep her telehealth and in-person commitments organized.
According to Dawn, one of the most important aspects of counseling is developing a strong therapeutic relationship. She believes telehealth can foster that same connection, explaining, “Telehealth provides an environment of increased comfort, confidentiality, and choice of provider, giving patients more ease and flexibility to see their therapist from their home or office without having to travel and sit in waiting rooms.” In her experience, when the therapeutic relationship is strong, the screens seem to disappear.
One of Dawn’s proudest accomplishments has been continuing to expand her clinical expertise for telehealth practice. She currently provides EMDR virtually, and she has found it to be just as effective as delivering the therapy in person. As she explains, “I feel proud of my ability to provide up-to-date trauma-informed methods of care in creative ways virtually.” In addition to EMDR, she offers Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, and therapeutic yoga interventions through telehealth. She is also excited to begin providing virtual clinical supervision for graduate students working toward licensure as clinical social workers.
Thank you for your commitment to telehealth excellence, Dawn – we’re excited to see your reach continue to grow.
