Dr. Sommer Garrett
Compassionate counseling for guilt and trauma
- Credentials
- LPC
- Experience
- 9 years
- Licensed in
- South Carolina
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Sommer
Dr. Sommer Garrett is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) based in South Carolina with nine years of experience. She centers her work on helping people who carry heavy guilt and shame.
She frames counseling as a trusted place to bring both the parts people are proud of and the parts that hurt. Her practice often focuses on trauma, stress, anxiety, grief, depression, addictions, relationship and intimacy concerns, and parenting challenges.
Background and approach
She also addresses ADHD, bipolar symptoms, career strain, compassion fatigue, and life transitions. Additional areas of focus include abandonment, adoption and foster care, attachment issues, blended family concerns, caregiver stress, and family of origin problems. Sommer draws from approaches such as Attachment-Based Therapy, Client-Centered Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and trauma-focused work.
She describes a warm, collaborative style and sometimes uses creative methods beyond talk. She focuses on reducing anxiety and strengthening self-worth and connection. Her experience includes providing trauma-focused counseling and education internationally in Kenya, Uganda, and Ukraine, which informed her belief that people everywhere want to be known and connected.
She aims to help people see how past experiences shaped them without letting those experiences define them. Her hope in sessions is practical: find what keeps someone stuck, notice the strengths that helped them survive, and begin loosening guilt, shame, and fear. She invites people to bring their stories and work toward feeling more connected and whole.
Approaches that translate to online care
Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on how early relationships shape current bonds and feelings. Online sessions can explore patterns of connection and how to build safer, more supportive ways of relating. Client-Centered Therapy centers the person in the room and follows their pace and priorities. In remote sessions this approach means the therapist listens closely, reflects what matters most, and helps people name goals and needs. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and teaches practical skills to change them; it often includes exercises people practice between sessions to reduce anxiety, depression, and stress.Finding the right approach is collaborative. The therapist will work with each person to decide which methods fit their goals and preferences. That choice can change over time as needs and circumstances evolve, and the therapist will check in and adjust the plan together with the client.
Confirm the session formats before booking since specific formats are not listed in the profile. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy life - for example by saving travel time, allowing a quieter check-in during a lunch break, or using shorter meetings when needed. It can also support using worksheets, guided imagery, and other exercises between visits so therapeutic work continues between sessions.
Attachment-Based Therapy
Looks at how early bonds shaped what you expect from closeness, and how that plays out now with a partner, a parent, or your own children.
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.
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Trauma and abuse
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 9 years
- Licensed
- South Carolina
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Sommer
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point