Susan Shafer, LCMHC, LPC

Susan Shafer is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and a Licensed Professional Counselor with about 15 years of experience. She practices in New Jersey and helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, and addictions. Her approach centers on practical tools people can use between sessions to feel steadier day to day.

Susan blends client-centered work with cognitive behavioral techniques and mindfulness practices. She focuses on helping clients notice patterns in thoughts, feelings, and behavior and then try small, doable changes. Sessions often include breathing, simple movement, or brief skill-building exercises to help people reconnect with their bodies and calm intense emotions.

She also uses motivational interviewing and solution-focused strategies to set clear, achievable goals. That style can help when someone is trying to change habits, address substance use concerns, or move through life transitions. The aim is to find what works for each person rather than imposing one fixed method.

Susan has additional experience supporting people with ADHD, grief, trauma-related issues, parenting questions, relationship and family concerns, career stress, and compassion fatigue. She invites clients to explore attachment, codependency, communication problems, and control issues as they relate to current struggles.

Beginning therapy with her involves identifying practical goals and building skills to reach them. The work is collaborative and paced to match each person's needs. When a client is ready, she helps them plan next steps and practices that extend beyond the therapy hour.

Approaches you can use in online therapy

Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and understanding a person as they are, then supporting them to make changes at their own pace. It helps people who need a steady, accepting space to talk through stress, grief, relationship concerns, or life transitions.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, helps people identify unhelpful thoughts and try practical behavior changes. This approach is useful for anxiety, depression, mood disorders, sleep problems, and for learning small experiments to change habits related to addictions.

Mindfulness therapy teaches simple attention and breathing practices to reduce reactivity and improve focus. Those practices can support emotional regulation, stress reduction, and coping with overwhelming feelings.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to pick methods that match goals, preferences, and daily life. Sessions often mix listening, skill practice, and goal-setting so clients can try new ways of responding between meetings.

Session formats were not specified in the provided profile, so confirm available options when booking. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy week, reduce travel time, and allow shorter or more frequent check-ins when helpful. Licensed professionals often adapt exercises and mindfulness practices so they work in a home or work break setting without changing their effectiveness.