Melanie D. Davis, MS, LCMHC

Trauma-Informed Psychotherapist | Founder of Planted Healing + PLAE Therapy | Educator | Advocate | Speaker

Therapy is often sought in seasons when life feels heavier than it should—when anxiety, depression, trauma, relational stress, or identity-based challenges begin to affect the way you move through your days. Many people come not only looking for relief, but longing for something deeper: to feel more grounded, more connected, and more at home within themselves and their relationships.

Melanie D. Davis offers therapy that is deeply relational and trauma-informed, rooted in the belief that healing happens through safety, attunement, and connection. Her work integrates evidence-based approaches with an integrative, whole-person lens—supporting clients in understanding what their nervous system has been carrying, strengthening emotional regulation, and building more secure attachment and meaningful connection. Melanie works with individuals, couples, families, children, and teens, and she is currently accepting clients.

As Melanie enters her third decade in the mental health care world, she brings a depth of clinical wisdom shaped by work across inpatient care, residential treatment, PHP/IOP programs, outpatient settings, group practice, and private practice. She is the founder and owner of Planted Healing Mental Health Practice and PLAE Therapy, and a co-founder of Continuum Mind + Body Collaborative—collectively operating and leading three mental health practices while continuing to enjoy the heart of her work: sitting with clients, building trust, and supporting healing in real time. Her approach is informed by extensive training in trauma care, attachment work, integrative modalities, and research-supported therapies—including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), play therapy, and expressive arts therapies—allowing her to meet clients with both warmth and clinical precision.

Melanie is also deeply committed to culturally responsive care and community advocacy. She has a longstanding history of partnering with and supporting marginalized and historically underserved communities, and she brings both lived experience and professional dedication to her work with individuals and families navigating identity, belonging, cultural stress, and systemic impacts. Her care is rooted in the belief that healing is relational—and that therapy should honor the full context of a person’s lived experience, culture, and community.

Therapeutic Approach: Trauma-Informed, Attachment-Based, Whole-Person Care

Melanie’s approach is grounded in trauma-informed and attachment-based care, and she integrates research-supported modalities based on each client’s unique needs—never forcing a person to fit a method, but allowing the treatment to meet the person. Therapy with Melanie is both compassionate and intentional: a space where clients feel deeply supported while also being guided toward meaningful, sustainable change.

Melanie is trained and well-versed in a range of evidence-based and experiential approaches, including:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to address thought patterns, self-beliefs, and behavioral cycles

• DBT-informed tools and skills for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and relational effectiveness

• IFS-informed therapy to support parts-work, self-compassion, and deeper inner healing

• Attachment-focused therapy for relational repair, safety, and secure connection

• Play therapy for developmentally responsive emotional processing and healing

• Expressive arts therapies to support emotion, identity, and nervous-system expression beyond words

Because trauma and chronic stress often live in the nervous system and body—not just the mind—Melanie also integrates mind-body and whole-person supports that strengthen therapeutic outcomes. Depending on each client’s needs and goals, this may include nervous-system regulation strategies, mindfulness, breathwork, movement-based support, sensory and environmental wellness approaches, and foundations of nutritional psychology to support emotional and physiological resilience.

Her goal is not simply symptom reduction, but lasting transformation—helping clients reconnect with safety, agency, clarity, and self-trust, and ultimately feel more capable of living fully in their relationships and daily lives.

Clinical Expertise + Cultural Responsiveness

Melanie specializes in the treatment of trauma, depression, anxiety, attachment-related challenges, and identity-based stress. She is also a sought-after expert on children’s mental health, cultural topics, transracial adoption, and identity development. As an adoptee from a transracial family, she brings both lived experience and clinical expertise to supporting individuals and families navigating adoption, race, belonging, and cultural identity.

Melanie’s creative therapeutic interventions have been published in Attachment-Centered Play Therapy and Play Therapy: Proven Strategies for Childhood Disorders, reflecting her ongoing commitment to advancing the field of child and family mental health through both practice and education.

In addition to her clinical work, Melanie is a former co-founder of the Black Clinicians Practitioner Group, a collective dedicated to supporting Black mental health professionals and advocating for culturally responsive, equitable access to mental health care in Utah.

Awards & Recognitions

• Mountain West Small Business Finance – Small Business Grant Award Winner (2025)

• Utah Bold Leadership – “A Bolder Way Forward” Utah Bold Leader Award Winner (2025)

• GK Folks Foundation / Afro Utah Awards – Health Advocacy Award Winner (2023)

• Utah Business Magazine – Distinguished Leader, Living Color Gala Award Winner (2023)

• Utah Business Magazine – Living Color Gala Award Winner (2021) (recognized for work with Black Clinicians)

• Utah Business Magazine – 30 Women to Watch Award Winner (2019)

Featured, Included In, & Publication Features

• Innovate Utah (in collaboration with Silicon Slopes)

• Black Utah: Stories from a Thriving Community (Utah Black Chamber, 2022)

• Publication Features: Attachment-Centered Play Therapy and Play Therapy: Proven Strategies for Childhood Disorders