Rita Kanareff
Compassionate support for life’s tough moments
- Credentials
- LPCC
- Experience
- 21 years
- Licensed in
- Ohio
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Rita
Rita Kanareff is an Ohio-licensed LPCC with 21 years of clinical experience. She focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, and other difficult life moments. Rita aims to create a calm space where people can talk about what feels hard and begin to make small, practical changes.
Rita uses straightforward methods to help people find clearer thinking and better daily routines. She combines Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and EMDR when these approaches fit a person’s needs.
Background and approach
Sessions are paced to each person, with attention to coping skills and realistic steps forward. Her background includes long-term clinical work in Ohio and a range of practice settings over two decades. Rita draws on that experience when helping people who feel stuck or overwhelmed by life changes and relationship stress.
She pays attention to patterns like attachment concerns, abandonment, and codependency when they show up in therapy. Rita also addresses issues such as grief, eating and sleeping problems, caregiver stress, chronic illness, and compassion fatigue. She helps people work on self-esteem, intimacy-related concerns, and career-related stress in concrete, manageable ways.
Her style is practical, empathetic, and focused on what a person can try between sessions. People who choose Rita can expect a collaborative approach that balances skill-building with processing past wounds. She assists clients in setting clear goals and tracking progress over time.
Care is offered in English and oriented around each person’s pace and values.
How Rita’s Approaches Translate to Online Therapy
Rita commonly uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing as part of her work. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and trying small behavior changes to improve mood and daily functioning. EMDR is a structured approach used to process traumatic memories and reduce their emotional impact.She also draws on Dialectical Behavior Therapy when emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills are needed. DBT teaches practical tools for managing intense feelings and improving communication in stressful moments. Rita discusses these options with each person and chooses methods that fit their situation and goals.
Deciding on the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will review a person’s concerns, try out techniques, and adjust the plan based on what helps most. Clients are encouraged to share preferences and feedback so the work stays useful and manageable.
Online sessions are offered via video, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to provide flexibility. These formats make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules, handle short-term check-ins, and continue work during life transitions. Many people find the mix of real-time conversation and written check-ins helps keep progress steady.
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.
EMDR
A structured protocol used with distressing memories, pairing recall with guided attention tasks. Some therapists adapt it for video sessions; whether that fits is worth asking about directly.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also works with
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 21 years
- Licensed
- Ohio
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Rita
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