Donald Bliss
Experienced LCSW helping people find more joy
- Credentials
- LCSW
- Experience
- 40 years
- Licensed in
- California
- Languages
- English, Portuguese
- Format
- Online sessions
About Donald
Donald Bliss is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with forty years of experience in mental health and addictions work. He speaks English and Portuguese and has lived and worked in many places, bringing practical know-how to common struggles like stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, and parenting concerns.
Donald listens closely and aims to help people reconnect with what brings them meaning and joy. He takes a straightforward, conversational approach in sessions.
Background and approach
Donald asks questions, reflects back what he hears, and helps people try small changes that can make daily life easier. He combines evidence-based methods with attention to each person’s story and background. Donald’s background includes work in outpatient clinics, inpatient psychiatric hospitals, residential treatment centers, community agencies, employee assistance programs, and nonprofit and government settings.
His training covers child and adolescent welfare, employee assistance programs, and addictions, and he has both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in social work. His clinical interests cover a wide range of concerns - relationships, trauma and abuse, grief, intimacy and self-esteem issues, career questions, and coping with life changes among them.
He also addresses adoption and foster care, attachment and blended family challenges, chronic illness or pain, codependency, and substance use issues. Sessions are offered in English and Portuguese, and he accepts international clients. Donald aims to work collaboratively to find practical steps toward clearer communication, healthier routines, and more satisfying connection with oneself and others.
Therapeutic approaches and online options
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and understanding each person's perspective. The therapist reflects what is said and helps clients discover their own solutions, which can be useful for relationship struggles, self-esteem, and parenting worries.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions affect one another. It breaks problems into manageable steps and teaches practical tools to reduce anxiety, manage mood, and change unhelpful patterns.
Mindfulness Therapy teaches simple attention and breathing practices to reduce stress and help people respond rather than react. It is often paired with other methods to support coping with chronic pain, anxiety, or overwhelming emotions.
Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, needs, and preferences and tailor methods over time. That way the plan can shift if something isn’t working or if priorities change.
Online sessions offer flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. These options make it easier to schedule around work and family life and to maintain continuity when travel or relocation happens. Many people find virtual sessions a practical way to keep therapy consistent while using the approaches described above.
Client-Centered Therapy
The direction comes from you rather than from a set programme. The therapist offers a warm, non-judgemental space to think out loud and work at your own pace. Online, this rests on the relationship rather than on being in the same room.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT looks at the link between what you think, how you feel, and what you do. You work on noticing unhelpful patterns and practising steadier responses. It suits online sessions well, because much of the work happens between appointments and can be talked through from anywhere.
Mindfulness Therapy
Attention training: noticing thoughts and physical feelings as they arrive without being carried off by them. Much of it is practice you do yourself, so guidance over video or audio works much as it would in person.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 40 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English, Portuguese
Next step
Talk to Donald
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point