About Dana
Dana Spitz is a licensed clinical social worker with two decades of experience helping people manage stress, anxiety, grief, and trauma. She practices in New Jersey and uses a direct, supportive style to help clients set clear goals and build practical skills. Dana focuses on people facing relationship and family difficulties, parenting strain, depression, anger, and career-related stress.
Her work centers on a client-centered approach. She partners with each person to identify what is driving their struggle and to set achievable steps forward.
Background and approach
Cognitive behavioral and solution-focused techniques are woven into sessions to help change unhelpful thoughts and build concrete coping strategies. Dana also draws on trauma-focused and emotionally-focused methods when past wounds or attachment injuries get in the way of daily life. She pays attention to family of origin issues, abandonment and attachment concerns, and dynamics that fuel codependency or isolation.
The tone in sessions is calm, sensitive, and pragmatic. Over 22 years she has supported people coping with abuse, caregiving stress, shame, and feelings of emptiness. She helps clients break down problems into manageable steps and practice new ways of responding to old patterns.
Sessions aim to reduce distress and increase confidence in handling life’s challenges. To begin, Dana asks clients to set collaborative goals and to try small, practical exercises between sessions. Her focus is on steady progress rather than quick fixes, and on helping people move toward clearer relationships and healthier routines.
How therapy approaches translate to online care
Client-centered work focuses on your needs and goals. The therapist listens closely, reflects what matters to you, and helps you choose the next steps. That approach helps with a wide range of concerns from relationship problems to parenting strain.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at connections between thoughts, feelings, and actions. Sessions include practical exercises to change unhelpful thinking and build new habits. This approach is helpful for anxiety, depression, and managing stress in daily life.
Emotionally-Focused Therapy focuses on feelings and attachment patterns that shape relationships. It helps people notice emotional responses, express needs more clearly, and repair connection where it has frayed. This can support work on family issues, commitment concerns, and communication problems.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist collaborates with each person to pick methods that match their goals, needs, and preferences. Together they review what’s helping and adjust the plan as work progresses.
Online sessions include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is useful for full conversations and visual cues. Phone can be easier when bandwidth or camera use is limited. Live chat and messaging are helpful for short check-ins, journaling between sessions, or when typing feels easier than speaking. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life and keep continuity between appointments.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Trauma and abuse
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Money and financial issues
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 22 years
- Licensed
- New Jersey
- Languages
- English