Melissa Bradley Schniers

Melissa Bradley Schniers has been a counselor for nearly 20 years. “Seeing people get better and using techniques or things that they’ve learned in therapy, it makes me want to just keep doing it,” she said. “Even though it’s hard, it is fulfilling when you get those people that come back and say, ‘You helped me so much.’” Schniers graduated from Dublin High School in 1992. Her father and both grandfathers had served in the military, and in 1994 she enlisted in the Navy. She completed boot camp in Florida, and the Navy then sent her to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

She was stationed on a floating drydock, which is a dock that can be submerged under water to either lift ships or dock submarines. “At the beginning I was working on submarines,” she said. “Then I went to school for haircutting and that’s how I spent the rest of my time in the Navy. I was in the barber shop.”

She also started working towards a college degree at Chaminade University of Honolulu.

Living in Hawaii was an interesting experience for Schniers. “I loved the culture, she said. “I tried to fully immerse myself and just blend in the melting pot.”

While in the Navy, Schniers met James Schniers, and they were married in 1995. Schniers had a daughter that same year, and continued to serve until 1997. When she was discharged she and her husband moved to Dublin.

Schniers finished up her degree in psychology at Tarleton, and worked odd jobs on the side. “I worked in the registrar’s office [at Tarleton], I drove a bus at one point … I worked at a couple of banks,” she said.

When she finished her bachelor’s in 2000, she stayed on at Tarleton to earn her masters and her Licensed Professional Counselor certification.

While working on her masters, Schniers applied for a job at what is now Pecan Valley Centers for Behavioral and Developmental Healthcare as an adult case manager. Over a few years there, she moved up to working as a cognitive based therapist. “I did that for a while, and worked in a lot of different counties,” she said. “I went to schools and did therapy with kids with depression and ADHD and things like that.”

She also began working with some veterans, and was trained in Cognitive Processing Therapy, which is a technique used for trauma work for veterans. She completed the hours needed for her counseling license in 2008, and soon she was promoted to area manager, overseeing the Pecan Valley Clinics in Stephenville and Granbury. In that role, she supervised case managers and support staff.

During her eight years at Pecan Valley, Schniers found the work rewarding. “The clients were my favorite part of the job,” she said. “[Working with them] was very fulfilling.”

Schniers left Pecan Valley in 2012, after eight years. “After that I did two different things,” she said. “I opened my own practice, and I started working for Millwood Hospital’s Weatherford Access Center.”

Schniers’ private practice, which she named Divine Counseling Services, was open to all but specifically targeted towards veterans of the Vietnam and Gulf wars. “That group of people are stubborn as hell, and they will hardly talk to anybody,” Schniers said. “I felt privileged that they would actually talk to me.”

At Millwood she provided intensive outpatient group therapies for patients struggling with substance abuse and mental illness, and also did crisis intervention. She stayed there for two years, until her own counseling service started taking up more of her time.

While working at her counseling practice, Schniers went back to school at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth for a PhD in marriage and family therapy. She graduated in 2020, the same year she opened a new office of her counseling service in Waco. In 2021 she closed the Stephenville office of her practice.

During COVID, her counseling services went fully remote, and Schiers took on an extra job on the side at the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. “It was a prison for males ages eight to 18, and I did group therapy and individual therapy with them,” she said.

She stayed there for a short while before returning to Divine Counseling Services full time. These days she spends her days in her Waco office, or working from home with online appointments. She works for the online counseling service BetterHelp, as well as another online service, Espyr Employee Assistance Program.

In the future, Schniers hopes to publish some of her research. One article is about anger in veterans, and another about how veterans’ PTSD can affect their children. “My husband has PTSD and I know how to help my kids,” she said. “It can be really difficult and [growing up with a loved one with PTSD] affects their mood, it affects their depression and anxiety.” She hopes her research can be helpful for others in the same situation.

Schniers is also working on writing a book on counseling theory, and hopes to one day be hired at a university.

She and her husband live in Lorena, a small town between Waco and Temple. “It’s smaller than Dublin, and a really nice community,” she said.

In her free time, Schniers enjoys fishing, partner dancing, and spending time with her family. She has three children. Sarah is 27, Mischa is 16, and Brody is 12. Her parents, Glen and Linda Bradley, have both passed away.

Schniers’ advice to Dublin graduates is to set goals they are excited about, even if it’s scary. “Don’t think small, think big,” she said. “I mean, look what I did. I didn’t think I could do any of that, but it’s pretty nice to do it.”

Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen. com.