Even his years as a barista at Starbucks in Aurora, Illinois, from 2024 to 2026, which overlapped with his graduate training, reinforced skills he now uses daily: managing several people’s needs at once while coordinating with a team, and de-escalating situations when communication between customers and staff broke down. This diverse background helps clients and colleagues see Luke as approachable and adaptable, and shows how real-world experience informs his practice.
Clinical Training and Credentials
Luke Pigott earned his Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from National Louis University in Lisle, Illinois, completing his program in 2026 with integrated Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor credentialing. He is licensed as a Licensed Professional Counselor and certified as a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor, enabling him to treat mental health and substance use issues within a single therapeutic relationship.
His undergraduate work was in the sciences. Pigott earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Illinois State University in 2015, after beginning his college coursework at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. He wrestled competitively at both schools, as a member of the Indiana University wrestling team from 2011 to 2012 and with the Illinois State University Wrestling Club from 2012 to 2014.
Clinical Experience Across Illinois Treatment Settings
Luke Pigott built his clinical record across four Illinois organizations, each adding a distinct population and level of care. He began in 2023 as a Registered Behavior Technician with Caravel Autism Health in Warrenville, Illinois, supporting and implementing patient care plans created by a board-certified behavior analyst and delivering applied behavior analysis interventions that encourage socially acceptable replacement behaviors, so that clients can build and improve their communication, social interaction, and problem-solving skills.
During the same period, from 2023 to 2024, he served as clinical support staff and group facilitator at Banyan Treatment Center in Naperville, Illinois, leading groups daily or as needed and helping patients gain insight into their problems and understand their treatment goals.
His internship at Gateway Foundation in Aurora, Illinois, from 2024 to 2025 placed him in a residential facility and significantly broadened his responsibilities. Pigott facilitated groups daily, assisted clients with crisis interventions, and handled primary counselor duties, including individual sessions, family sessions, case management, and insurance recertifications. He also created and implemented group curricula in cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and art therapy, work that required translating clinical theory into material that could be delivered to a room of people in active recovery.
In his current private practice in Naperville, Illinois, Luke Pigott provides individual, couple, and family therapy to children, adolescents, and adults experiencing depression, anxiety, trauma, substance use disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and autism. He conducts comprehensive biopsychosocial assessments, develops individualized treatment plans, and maintains clinical documentation in compliance with ethical, legal, and insurance requirements.
An Approach Grounded in Evidence and Collaboration
Luke Pigott works most often with people who feel stuck: caught in patterns of anxiety, depression, addiction, or trauma response, strained by difficult relationships, or struggling in the relationship they have with themselves through body image concerns, intrusive thoughts, or emotions that feel unmanageable. He also works with families raising children with autism, where his background as a behavior technician informs the work.
Rather than committing to a single modality, Pigott draws on a wide range: cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, art therapy, mindfulness, play therapy, emotionally focused therapy, narrative therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy. The breadth is deliberate. Different clients respond to different tools, and a counselor who sees children, couples, and adults in recovery needs a range.
What stays constant is the environment he builds. Pigott aims to be a therapist who listens without judgment, fostering trust and reassurance, then offers realistic, practical tools for coping and regulating emotions. He wants every idea, thought, and emotion to be welcome for discussion, with the shared aim of improving quality of life. Alongside that openness, he applies evidence-based practice and holds clients accountable for the change they have said they want.
Community involvement and life outside the practice reflect Luke Pigott’s commitment to fostering a supportive network. His engagement demonstrates a dedication to community well-being, inspiring colleagues and referral sources to see him as a collaborative partner invested in shared growth.
Away from his practice, Luke Pigott volunteers with Feed My Starving Children in Aurora, Illinois, an organization that packs and ships meals for children facing hunger. Earlier in his career, he coordinated an after-school program at the Children’s Discovery Museum in Normal, Illinois, through its Innovation Institute, meeting twice a week with seven at-risk high school students to strengthen their grasp of a wide range of scientific concepts and training them to lead hands-on activities for museum visitors between the ages of two and ten.
Music has been a constant. Pigott plays saxophone, piano, guitar, drums, and bass. He travels frequently, and his trips have taken him to Rome, Dublin, London, Paris, Cozumel, St. George’s in Grenada, New York City, and Philadelphia.
Looking Ahead
Luke Pigott’s professional life is built on the belief that people can change when they have both room and structure. That belief runs through the group curricula he wrote at Gateway Foundation, the behavior plans he implemented at Caravel Autism Health, and the crews he managed years earlier at Fine Line Landscaping, where the job was to understand what someone needed and then deliver it. It is also why he pursued dual credentialing as a Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor rather than settling for one or the other.
From his private practice in Naperville, Illinois, Luke Pigott continues to work with clients who arrive feeling stuck, offering a space where nothing is off-limits for discussion and practical tools for what comes next.
