Michelle Lakefield
Supportive guidance for stressed parents
- Credentials
- LPC
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed in
- New Jersey
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Michelle
Michelle Lakefield is a licensed professional counselor with two decades of experience. She helps people coping with stress, anxiety, depression, grief, parenting challenges, and relationship or intimacy concerns. Her tone is direct and supportive, aimed at parents and caregivers who need practical steps and steady guidance.
She creates an open space where thoughts and feelings can be spoken without judgment. That begins with listening closely and checking in about what matters most to each person.
Background and approach
Sessions are meant to feel straightforward and useful rather than vague or clinical. Michelle draws on several evidence-informed approaches to tailor work to each person. She uses techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy to address unhelpful thinking patterns.
She also brings client-centered listening and solution-focused tools to help people notice small changes that make daily life easier. Her background includes two decades of professional practice while licensed in New Jersey as an LPC. This experience informs clear, practical guidance for coping with life changes, parenting stress, caregiver strain, and co-occurring concerns like ADHD or mood challenges.
People who come for help often want a calm, steady presence and ideas they can try between sessions. Michelle emphasizes collaboration - deciding together which steps to try and tracking what helps. She aims to make the work manageable so clients can take those first needed steps toward feeling better.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening closely and following the client's lead. The therapist creates space for people to describe what matters, and this approach helps those who need understanding and steady support. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, teaches practical tools to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. It is often used for anxiety, depression, and stress-related worries because it gives clear steps to try between sessions.Choosing the right approach is part of the work. Michelle will talk with each person about their goals and preferences and then suggest methods to try. That choice is collaborative - techniques can be adjusted over time based on what is helpful.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Those options allow for flexible scheduling and easier access when life is busy or travel is difficult. Using different formats makes it possible to keep momentum between appointments and to fit therapy into a parent or caregiver's routine.
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.
Solution-Focused Therapy
Rather than examining the problem at length, this looks at what is already working and builds on it. Sessions tend to be practical and forward-looking, with small achievable steps, which translates readily to shorter online conversations.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also works with
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed
- New Jersey
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Michelle
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point