William Shonts
Supportive counseling for family stress and change
- Credentials
- LPC-MHSP
- Experience
- 22 years
- Licensed in
- Tennessee
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About William
William Shonts is a licensed professional counselor with mental health service provider credentials who has practiced in Tennessee for 22 years. He focuses on stress, anxiety, family concerns, depression, coping with life changes, and compassion fatigue. He treats people with respect and sensitivity and prioritizes a supportive, down-to-earth approach.
William calls on long experience to help families and individuals find clearer ways forward. He uses straightforward conversation to identify what matters most to each person.
Background and approach
Sessions are built around what the client wants to change and what feels realistic for their life. William adapts the pace and tools he uses to each situation rather than following a fixed script. His work draws on several well-established methods.
He mixes client-centered talk, cognitive behavioral techniques, and skills from dialectical behavior therapy when useful. Mindfulness and emotionally-focused methods are also part of his toolbox for managing stress and improving relationships. Parents and adults looking for help with family tension, transitions, or ongoing stress will find practical strategies and emotional support.
He also addresses issues such as attachment, adoption and foster care concerns, caregiver stress, and communication problems. William aims to empower people so they can make steady, manageable changes at home and in daily life. He offers sessions in English and accepts international clients.
Work with him typically begins with a short intake to match goals and plan next steps. William emphasizes collaboration and clear, simple steps that clients can use between sessions.
Approaches that guide online sessions
William commonly uses client-centered therapy, which focuses on listening closely and reflecting what matters to the client so they feel understood and can set their own goals. This approach helps when people need space to talk through family tensions or big life changes with a nonjudgmental listener.He also applies cognitive behavioral therapy, a practical method that looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions connect. CBT helps break unhelpful patterns linked to anxiety, depression, and stress by teaching concrete skills and small behavioral changes.
Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work together. The therapist will collaborate with each person to decide which methods fit their needs, goals, and preferences and will adjust the plan as progress is made.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging, which offer flexibility for busy schedules and different comfort levels. These options make it easier to fit therapy into family routines and to check in between sessions when short support or skill practice is helpful. Licensed professionals can use these formats to deliver the same conversational, skills-based work they do in person, while keeping scheduling and access simple.
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
- Family conflicts
- Depression
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Body image
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 22 years
- Licensed
- Tennessee
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to William
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point