Wendie Vanderwater
Experienced LCSW focused on practical support
- Credentials
- LCSW
- Experience
- 22 years
- Licensed in
- Montana
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Wendie
Wendie Vanderwater is a licensed clinical social worker who focuses on helping people navigate stress, anxiety, parenting concerns, and life transitions. She speaks plainly and works to create a down-to-earth space where clients can be honest about what’s hard. She aims to be nonjudgmental and practical, offering choices about how therapy feels and how much homework to try.
Wendie adapts common therapies to each person. She often blends dialectical behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy with mindfulness practices.
Background and approach
That can mean learning skills to manage intense feelings, trying small behavior changes, or using brief writing exercises to notice patterns. Sessions begin with questions to figure out what a person needs most. From there she collaboratively sets goals and chooses tools that match comfort level and life demands.
Clients decide whether they want structured tasks or more open conversation, and Wendie adjusts accordingly. She encourages activity outside sessions as part of recovery, such as volunteering or joining social groups. Those steps are presented as practical ways to increase well-being rather than as rigid rules.
Wendie’s approach is flexible and focused on what works in daily life. With 22 years of experience and an LCSW credential, Wendie brings steady clinical judgment and a straightforward style. She offers sessions in English and provides several online formats so people can fit therapy into busy schedules.
How Wendie’s Approaches Fit Online Therapy
Wendie commonly uses dialectical behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy in straightforward ways. DBT focuses on building skills to tolerate strong emotions, improve relationships, and reduce impulsive reactions. It can help with intense mood swings and problems managing anger or stress. CBT helps people spot unhelpful thoughts and try small behavior changes that reduce anxiety and depression symptoms.She also uses mindfulness practices to help people notice feelings and stay present. Mindfulness can be paired with DBT or CBT and often shows up as short breathing, awareness, or journaling exercises during or between sessions. Wendie treats choosing the right mix of methods as a team effort and will work with each person to find what fits their goals and daily life.
Online therapy offers flexibility for those with busy schedules or limited local options. Video calls let the therapist and client meet face to face, while phone sessions provide a simpler audio option. Live chat and text messaging make brief check-ins and skill reminders possible between longer sessions. These formats allow practical skill work, homework review, and ongoing support without needing to travel.
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.
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.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also works with
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Traumatic brain injury
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 22 years
- Licensed
- Montana
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Wendie
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point