Kelly Smith
Experienced LCSW focused on practical support
- Credentials
- LCSW
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed in
- New York, California, Virginia
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Kelly
Kelly Smith is a licensed clinical social worker with thirty years of experience. Kelly takes a calm, respectful approach and focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, grief, and other life changes. Sessions are meant to feel interactive and validating so clients can talk through what matters most to them.
Kelly uses straightforward methods that help clients set goals and learn new skills. She combines cognitive-behavioral tools with client-centered conversation and mindfulness to address mood, addiction-related concerns, and trauma recovery.
Background and approach
Motivational strategies are used when people want help building momentum for change. In session the tone is warm and practical. Kelly listens for personal values and strengths, then crafts steps people can try between meetings.
The goal is to build coping skills, improve communication, and reduce overwhelm so daily life becomes easier to manage. Kelly holds LCSW licensure in New York and Virginia. That background supports clinical judgment developed over decades of practice and supervision.
Meetings can cover topics such as parenting, intimacy-related struggles, self-esteem, ADHD, bipolar concerns, and compassion fatigue. People who choose Kelly can expect a collaborative process. She helps clients weigh options, practice new responses, and adjust the plan as needed.
The focus is on clear, doable changes rather than jargon or lengthy theory.
Approaches and Online Options for Real-Life Change
The practice blends cognitive-behavioral therapy and client-centered work to support practical change and personal insight. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and trying new behaviors to reduce symptoms like anxiety and low mood. Client-centered therapy emphasizes listening, respect, and building on a person's strengths to guide decisions and goals.Kelly also uses dialectical behavior therapy techniques to teach emotion regulation and distress tolerance when overwhelming feelings get in the way of daily life. These methods suit people who want concrete skills alongside open, nonjudgmental conversation. Choosing the right mix of approaches is a collaborative process; the therapist and client decide together based on needs, goals, and preferences.
Online therapy options include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging, which make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules. These formats allow for regular check-ins, practice of new skills between sessions, and flexible ways to communicate when in-person visits aren't possible. Kelly works with clients to find the format that best supports their progress and comfort.
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.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Concrete skills for riding out strong emotion, tolerating distress, and handling relationships without things escalating. The skills are practised in daily life, so between-session support by message or phone fits naturally.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- LGBT
- Relationship issues
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- New York, California, Virginia, Washington
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Kelly
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point