About Heidi
Heidi Strater is a licensed clinical social worker with 25 years of practice in Florida. She focuses on helping adults who are struggling with depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, addiction, grief, and major life changes. Heidi also offers support for people facing caregiver stress and aging-related concerns.
She uses straightforward language and practical steps during sessions. Over her career she has worked a lot with people managing chronic mental illness and those with episodic symptoms.
Background and approach
Heidi draws on client-centered therapy to follow each person's priorities. She uses cognitive techniques to help shift unhelpful thinking patterns and DBT skills for emotion regulation and distress tolerance. Her approach blends mindfulness and motivational interviewing to build small, achievable goals.
Sessions often include learning coping skills, practicing new ways to communicate, and planning steps to manage day-to-day problems. She pays attention to the realities of caregiving, adoption or foster care histories, and chronic health conditions when those issues come up. Heidi aims for clear, usable tools rather than clinical jargon.
She helps people work through relationship strain, codependency, and control issues one step at a time. Forgiveness, guilt, and shame are addressed with practical strategies and reflection. Therapy with Heidi can include short-term problem solving or longer-term support for recurring challenges.
Her background includes extensive work with aging adults and caregivers, and she brings that experience into conversations about life transitions and chronic illness.
Therapeutic approaches and online care
Client-centered therapy focuses on the person's goals and values, letting the therapist follow what matters most in each session. It works well for people who want a supportive space to sort priorities and set personal goals.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, helps identify and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. It is useful for anxiety, depression, and patterns that keep problems going by teaching clear strategies to try between sessions.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, DBT, offers skills for managing intense emotions and improving stress tolerance. It can help when someone needs concrete tools for regulating moods and handling conflict.
Finding the right mix of approaches is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk through options and adjust techniques based on the client's needs, goals, and preferences rather than applying one fixed method.
Online therapy makes these approaches more flexible. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and skills practice. Phone sessions work when bandwidth is low or a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging suit quick updates, ongoing coaching, or when someone prefers writing to speaking. These options help people fit care into busy schedules and daily life.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- Florida
- Languages
- English