We meet people where they are.

Dr. Natalie Yates is a Clinical Social Worker and Creative Play Psychotherapist with 13 years of experience in the mental health field. She uniquely integrates cognitive behavioral therapy with play therapy to help her clients address a range of issues including anxiety, self-esteem, depression, communication challenges, family and relationship dynamics, and overall personal growth.

Dr. Yates graduated with honors, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University. She then obtained a Joint Master of Social Work degree from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University and the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, followed by a Doctorate in Family Interventions from Walden University. With over a decade of counseling experience in diverse settings such as private practice, inpatient substance abuse programs, and community services, she offers individual, couples, family, and group therapy. Her approach is client-centered, strength-based, and grounded in cognitive-behavioral techniques.

During her undergraduate studies, Dr. Yates served as a resident counselor at the Methodist Home for Children, supporting the emotional, physical, and social development of young patients. After graduation, she worked in outpatient clinics, providing therapy to both teens and adults. She also gained valuable experience in the public sector as a therapist with Asheboro City Schools, where she collaborated with families and school staff to deliver a range of interventions, including evaluation, crisis services, diagnosis, therapy, case management, and day treatment programs. Her outstanding professional contributions have been recognized with several awards, including Social Worker of the Year in 2011. Currently licensed as a Clinical Specialist, Dr. Yates treats clients facing addictive behaviors, adolescent issues, parent-child relationship challenges, non-suicidal self-harm behaviors, and mood disorders. Dr. Yates employs a holistic approach, educating clients on the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit. She believes that with the right support, individuals can challenge and replace irrational thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes, paving the way for meaningful and lasting personal transformation.

Miranda Johnson believes healing begins in the spaces where people finally feel seen, heard, and valued. Inspired by the lotus, the flower that rises from the muddiest water and blooms anyway, she carries into every session the conviction that growth often emerges from adversity, not in spite of it. As an Outpatient Therapist, she works with individuals and families navigating trauma, grief, life transitions, anxiety, depression, and the tender questions of identity and relationships. Her clinical focus reaches into the places people most often have to walk alone, childhood trauma, intergenerational trauma, and complex PTSD, and she sits with clients moving through every kind of loss, the loss of a person, yes, and also the quieter losses of a relationship, a career, a season of health, or the version of life they once imagined.

Miranda came to therapy by way of the front lines. She spent her early career in social work, in Healthy Start case management, at Family Services of the Piedmont, and in programs preventing child abuse and neglect, walking alongside families navigating housing and food insecurity, domestic violence, and crises that no one in the room was being given permission to name as mental health. She saw the gap that programs alone could not close. People were being asked to pull themselves up by their bootstraps while their inner lives went unattended, and the perinatal and postpartum mothers she worked with were carrying mood and identity shifts that no one had taught them to recognize. So she returned for her Master of Social Work through the joint program of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and North Carolina A&T State University, with one quiet mission underneath the credential, to help rewrite a system that had been asking too much of people and offering too little back. She knows this work is hers by design, and she knows what it feels like to be of service to it.

Her approach is trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and strength-based, integrating evidence-based practices with each client's lived experience and values. She holds a particular love for the work of supporting Black and Brown women, especially through pregnancy, postpartum, and the deeper inheritance of generational patterns families carry without ever choosing to. In her room, multiple things can be true at the same time. People do not have to agree. Discomfort is welcome. What Miranda wants for every client is the same thing she works to protect for herself: the right to trust themselves again and to remember that the hardest thing they are showing right now does not define who they are or who they are still becoming. Healing, in her view, is collaborative work, and the goal is never just for one person. It is families, generations, and communities learning, together, how to move forward without sweeping anything under the rug.

Octavia Harris brings experience in behavioral health, curriculum development, emotional wellness education, storytelling marketing, and community-based support to Primary Behavioral Health. Her work is rooted in helping people understand themselves, build emotional awareness, and access support before burnout, crisis, or disconnection takes over.

As a Qualified Professional, Octavia returned to direct care after becoming a mother and worked with children from kindergarten through twelfth grade who had been removed from traditional classroom settings due to emotional and behavioral needs. Her work included cognitive behavioral therapy-informed support, motivational interviewing, structured group facilitation, and the development of a full year of behavioral health curriculum now used in day treatment programs across North Carolina.

Through that work, Octavia saw a growing need not only among children and families, but also among the professionals, caregivers, clinicians, teachers, and high-functioning adults carrying responsibility for everyone else. She recognized that many people appear strong on the outside while privately running on empty.

Octavia joined Primary Behavioral Health to help build a prevention-focused organization that reaches people earlier, supports referral partners, strengthens community trust, and creates a clear path to care for individuals and families who need structure, emotional safety, and support before crisis occurs.

Kim McClure brings more than twenty years of healthcare leadership, direct care experience, and operational expertise to Primary Behavioral Health. Her background includes Director of Nursing leadership, oversight of large healthcare facilities, memory care, home health, administrative experience, and supervision of nurses, therapists, aides, and care teams across regional service settings.

Kim's commitment to care began long before her professional career. From a young age, she was known for showing up for people, supporting her family, helping her community, and caring for those who needed stability. That same loyalty has shaped her entire career. In a lifetime of work, she has held only three full-time jobs, a testament to her consistency, dedication, and deep commitment to the people and organizations she serves.

After decades in healthcare systems, Kim saw how often support arrived after families had already reached a crisis. She came to believe that emotional safety is not an add-on to good care. It is good care. Primary Behavioral Health was created from that belief to offer structured, compassionate, prevention-focused support for individuals and families before they reach their worst day.