THERAPIST · BOOK LOVER · TRUE CRIME ENTHUSIAST
Payton Wortman, MSW, LMSW
Part of You Wants to Get Better. Part of You Is Terrified of What That Means.
Payton Wortman is a licensed therapist at Empower Counseling who specializes in women and teens navigating eating disorders, body image struggles, anxiety, and the quiet weight of never quite feeling like enough. She brings clinical depth, genuine warmth, and a deep belief that every woman deserves to feel at home in her own life — not just manage it.
Her approach is rooted in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) — a well-researched, evidence-based method that helps you change your relationship with difficult thoughts and feelings, reconnect with your values, and move toward a life that actually feels like yours.
Payton Wortman, MSW, LMSW
Teen & Women’s Therapist
If You Have Found Your Way Here,
You Might Recognize Some of These.
Maybe it's the noise that won't stop — the mental math, the labeling of every choice, the second-guessing running underneath everything. Part of you knows something has to change, even as another part can't let go, because the control feels like the one thing keeping everything else from unraveling. You are not broken. You are caught between two very real, very human needs — and that is exactly where good therapy starts.
Maybe it's the gap between what people see and what you're actually feeling — the exhaustion of looking fine, the loneliness of how much you carry alone. You've gotten very good at hiding it, and that gap has become its own kind of weight.
Maybe you want to get better and you're also afraid of what that means. The fear of letting go is real, and it deserves to be taken seriously. Payton won't minimize it. She'll help you understand it, work with it, and move through it at a pace that feels safe.
Whatever brought you here — you do not have to have it figured out. You just have to show up.
What It Feels Like to Sit Across From Payton
Sessions with Payton are collaborative. She is warm and direct — the kind of therapist who meets you where you are without letting you stay stuck there. She doesn't offer empty reassurance or rush past hard things. She creates a space where what you've been most afraid to say out loud can finally be said — and worked with.
Women who see Payton often describe feeling genuinely met, not managed. Her background spans residential, partial hospitalization, and outpatient settings, which means she has worked with women at every level of need — and she brings that clinical range, along with a steady, judgment-free presence, to every client.
Her approach is strengths-based: she starts with what is already true about you, not just what is hard. She believes you are more than this struggle, more than your history with food and your body, more than the version of yourself you've had to be. Her job is to help you find your way back to the rest of it.
What Payton Helps With:
- Eating disorders — including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, and ARFID
- Body image concerns and disordered eating
- Social anxiety and performance anxiety
- Depression and mood disorders
- Trauma and its impact on the body and relationships
- Low self-esteem and chronic self-criticism
- Interpersonal issues and relationship patterns
- Difficult life transitions
In-person in Birmingham · Online throughout Alabama · Accepting new clients now
What Happens When You Reach Out
Your first session is not an assessment. It is a conversation. Payton will want to understand what has been hard, what brought you here, and what you're hoping for — even if right now that's simply to feel less alone in it. There's no pressure to share more than you're ready to. The pace is entirely yours.
Over time, sessions become a space you can count on — consistent, confidential, and entirely focused on you. Most clients find that the things they were most afraid to say out loud are the ones that, once spoken, begin to lose their grip.
What Payton Believes About You
She believes your relationship with food and your body is not a character flaw. It is a story — one that started somewhere, made sense at some point, and can change. She believes the self-criticism you've carried is not the truth about who you are. It is a habit, a voice you learned — and habits and voices can shift.
She also believes recovery doesn't require you to let go of everything at once, or to become someone unrecognizable, or to stop being afraid before you begin. It requires only that you take one honest step. She will be there for all the ones that follow.
You Deserve Support. Payton Is Here.
The noise, the hiding, the exhaustion of a life organized around something you never chose — there is another side to this, and Payton knows the way there. You reached out. That matters.
Payton is accepting new clients now. In person in Birmingham · Online throughout Alabama. You are not alone. Let's begin.
How Payton Helps
The approach: Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Payton's approach draws on two evidence-based methods — Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Internal Family Systems (IFS) — that are particularly well-suited for the anxiety, body image struggles, and self-worth challenges that bring many women and teens to therapy.
ACT helps you change your relationship with difficult thoughts and feelings about food and your body. Rather than trying to eliminate them or fight against them, you learn to notice your inner experience without being controlled by it — and to take meaningful action toward what matters most to you, even when the noise is loud.
IFS helps you understand the different parts of yourself that are in conflict — the part that wants to be free of the disorder and the part that is terrified of letting go. Rather than treating those parts as problems to be eliminated, IFS helps you understand what they are protecting and build a more compassionate relationship with all of it.
Her goal with every client is the same: to help you stop fighting yourself, reconnect with what matters, and move toward a life that actually feels like yours.
Background & Training
Payton Wortman earned her Bachelor's degree in Communication Studies at Samford University and her Master's degree in Social Work at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is a Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW) in the state of Alabama, practicing under the supervision of Sara Lovelady, LICSW-S. She is trained in Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Internal Family Systems (IFS).
Her clinical background spans residential, partial hospitalization, and outpatient settings — meaning she has worked with women at every level of need, from the most intensive phases of eating disorder treatment to the steady, ongoing work of building a life that feels worth living.
She offers in-person sessions at Empower Counseling's Birmingham office and online therapy for women and teens throughout Alabama. She is accepting new clients now.
A Little More About Payton
Outside of the therapy room, Payton loves spending time with her husband, their family, and their community here in Birmingham. You will likely find her trying a new recipe in the kitchen, getting lost in a book — she reads everything — out for a walk, or deep in a true crime podcast. That last one, she will tell you, traces back to one of her core values: justice.
She loves antiquing, discovering new music, learning about different cultures, and visiting places she has never been. She shares her home with two tabbies, June and Nora — though she is quick to tell you she is a dog lover too.
She started doing this work because she believes every woman deserves to feel at home in her own life. That belief has not changed.