Susan Frate
Compassionate, practical support for life changes
- Credentials
- LISW
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed in
- Ohio
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Susan
Susan Frate is a licensed independent social worker who focuses on helping people facing stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, and hard life transitions. She talks plainly and meets people where they are. Her approach centers on each person’s strengths and practical steps they can use right away.
Susan uses straightforward, skills-based methods so people can manage distress and move toward daily functioning. She emphasizes personal choice and helps clients clarify values, set small goals, and build routines that fit their life.
Background and approach
Sessions are collaborative and paced to what each person needs. Her background includes 25 years of clinical experience in Ohio as an LISW - Licensed Independent Social Worker. That experience spans work with addictions, grief, parenting concerns, and relationship problems among many other issues.
Susan draws on several therapy models to match techniques to the situation at hand. Common strategies she uses include cognitive-behavioral tools to shift unhelpful thinking, mindfulness skills to reduce reactivity, and acceptance-based exercises to tolerate difficult emotions. She also incorporates skills from dialectical behavior therapy when emotional regulation is a primary concern.
Clients can expect clear explanations of techniques and simple practice ideas between sessions. The tone in her work is supportive but practical, helping people take concrete steps when life feels overwhelming.
Approaches that translate well to online therapy
Susan commonly uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in her online practice. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on clarifying what matters to a person and taking small committed steps toward those values while learning to live with difficult thoughts and feelings. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps identify unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns and replaces them with more helpful habits and routines that reduce distress.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. Susan works with each person to figure out which methods fit their goals, needs, and preferences. Together they try specific techniques and adjust the plan over time based on what helps most.
Online therapy offers flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. These options make it easier to fit sessions into busy schedules and to practice skills between meetings. The format also allows for quick check-ins and ongoing support while using the same evidence-based tools as in-person work.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Less about arguing with difficult thoughts, more about loosening their grip and acting on what matters to you anyway. Values and committed action carry the work, which suits conversation at a distance.
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.
Frequently asked questions
What kinds of problems does she address?
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How much clinical experience does she have?
What are her credentials and where is she located?
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- Ohio
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Susan
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point