Laverne Santangelo
Family-focused counselor with practical tools
- Credentials
- LPC
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed in
- Michigan
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Laverne
Laverne Santangelo is a Licensed Professional Counselor who focuses on family and parenting concerns and related life challenges. She writes plainly and listens carefully. Parents who are juggling stress, relationship shifts, or addictions often find straightforward support and practical steps in her sessions.
She brings a calm, veteran perspective and aims to help people make steady changes without judgment. Laverne trained as an LPC - Licensed Professional Counselor - and has ten years of counseling experience, plus many more years volunteering and working in helping roles.
Background and approach
She also served in the Army National Guard for 23 years, which shapes her practical approach to problem solving. That lived experience informs how she talks about stigma, treatment barriers, and recovery. Her work includes helping people with anxiety, depression, mood disorders, ADHD, grief, trauma and family problems.
She has spent time in inpatient substance use settings and in community mental health, so she is familiar with both individual and family impacts of addiction. She also offers life coaching skills to support goal-setting and personal growth. In sessions she uses person-centered planning to build goals together.
She draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, motivational interviewing, and mindfulness-based practices to help people change patterns and manage strong emotions. Sessions tend to be practical and grounded, focused on what a parent or family member can do next. Laverne works with multicultural concerns and brings attention to caregiver stress, codependency, money worries, and life transitions.
She meets people where they are and helps them take small, steady steps toward balance and greater well-being.
How Laverne’s Approach Fits Online Therapy
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on the person and their priorities. It means conversations are guided by what the client brings, and goals are set together to fit each family or parent’s needs. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts and behaviors influence feelings and provides steps to change patterns that cause distress or interfere with parenting and daily life.Finding the right approach is part of the process. She will work together with each client to decide which techniques make the most sense for their situation and goals. That collaborative planning helps tailor brief exercises, coaching tasks, and coping strategies to fit a busy family life.
Online sessions offer flexibility for people with tight schedules or caregiving duties. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation; phone sessions can be useful when video is impractical. Live chat and text-based messaging make it easier to check in between sessions or use short coaching prompts in real time. These options help people access steady support while balancing work, family, and other responsibilities.
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
What kinds of problems does Laverne help with?
What is her therapeutic style like?
How long has she worked in mental health?
What are her credentials and where is she based?
Which languages are supported for sessions?
What formats are available for sessions?
How are fees and payment handled?
How do I begin working with her?
Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed
- Michigan
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Laverne
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point