Susan Essich-Kruse, LICSW, LISW-CP - Therapist in South Carolina

About Susan

Susan Essich-Kruse is a licensed social worker with 20 years of professional experience. She holds LICSW and LISW-CP credentials and is licensed in South Carolina. She focuses on common concerns like stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship strain.

Parents reading this should know she also addresses parenting-related challenges and related family problems. Her approach is straightforward and respectful. She starts by listening to each person’s story and learns what matters most to them.

Background and approach

She treats clients as the experts on their lives and helps them build on existing strengths. In sessions she uses client-centered techniques to make conversations feel less like tests and more like helpful talks. Mindfulness practices are offered to reduce stress and bring attention back to the present moment.

Systemic ideas help look at how relationships and roles affect everyday problems. Susan has worked with adoption and foster care concerns, blended family issues, divorce and separation, and aging and geriatric issues during her career. She also helps with communication problems, mood disorders, and women’s issues.

Her style tends to be practical and steady, helping people find small changes that matter. She invites people to take the first step and recognizes that starting therapy may feel hard. The work moves at a practical pace and focuses on what clients want to change.

Sessions aim to give tools for coping and clearer ways to handle life’s transitions.

How therapeutic approaches work online

Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and understanding each person’s perspective. The therapist reflects back what she hears and helps people clarify their goals and strengths, which can help with stress, anxiety, and day-to-day parenting challenges.

Mindfulness therapy teaches simple attention and breathing practices to reduce worry and improve focus. These exercises translate easily to video or phone sessions and can be practiced between meetings to manage mood and tension.

Systemic therapy looks at how roles and relationships shape problems. This approach helps identify patterns in communication and daily routines that may be contributing to stress or family-related concerns.

Finding the right approach is part of the process. The therapist works collaboratively with each person to test methods, adjust plans, and choose what feels most useful for their goals and preferences.

Online therapy offers flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. These formats make it easier to fit sessions into busy days, follow up between meetings, and use strategies in real time. Licensed professionals can adapt techniques to work well in these formats and help people move toward clearer coping and better routines.

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.

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 concerns does this therapist address?

Susan helps people with stress, anxiety, depression, relationship strain, and parenting challenges. Additional focuses include adoption and foster care, blended family issues, divorce and separation, aging and geriatric issues, communication problems, mood disorders, emptiness, family problems, and women’s issues.

What is her therapeutic style?

She uses a client-centered style that treats the person as the expert on their life. Mindfulness practices and systemic ideas are also used to reduce stress and examine relationship patterns.

How much experience does she have?

She has 20 years of professional work experience in social work and related practice areas.

What credentials and location are listed?

Credentials shown are LICSW and LISW-CP with MA LICSW LICSW126625 and SC LISW-CP 6520. She is licensed in South Carolina.

Which languages are supported and can international clients join?

Sessions are offered in English. International clients are not currently accepted.

What session formats are available?

Sessions can be scheduled as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different needs and schedules.

How are costs and billing handled?

Cost varies with location and therapist availability and sessions use a subscription that can be canceled at any time.

How do I begin working with this therapist?

Start by selecting the Start Therapy button, complete a short matching questionnaire, and then schedule sessions according to therapist availability.

Specialties and expertise

Top specialties

Stress, Anxiety
Relationship issues
Parenting issues

Also works with

Therapeutic approaches

Experience: 20 years
Licensed: South Carolina, Massachusetts
Languages: English

Next step

Talk to Susan

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