About Ryan
Ryan Schaffer is a Connecticut-based licensed clinical social worker who helps people facing addictions, trauma, intimacy challenges, and career or coaching questions. He offers straightforward support for those who want to understand themselves better and make lasting change. His style aims to be direct and grounding, while treating emotions and life choices with care.
With seven years of professional experience, he often works on issues like substance use, dissociation, eating and food-related struggles, and feelings of emptiness.
Background and approach
He also supports people dealing with attachment concerns, abandonment, codependency, and commitment or control issues. Sessions focus on practical steps alongside exploring personal meaning. Ryan uses a structured six-month transformation schedule for many clients who want a clear path and measurable progress.
He brings attention to body, mind, and personal values in sessions, encouraging people to notice patterns and try new ways of responding. He emphasizes recognizing personal strengths and owning truths that matter to the client. Work with him can include career-focused coaching or help navigating the emotional impact of trauma and abuse.
He aims to create an open space where thoughts and feelings can be shared without judgment. That approach supports people who want both practical tools and deeper self-understanding. Ryan practices in Connecticut and holds the LCSW credential, Connecticut LCSW number 11605.
Sessions are conducted in English and international clients are accepted.
Approaches for Change, Online and Accessible
Ryan combines practical, evidence-based techniques with personal exploration to help people move forward. One common strand in his work focuses on integrating mind and body awareness - helping clients notice physical cues, reduce reactivity, and build steady coping skills that support recovery from addiction or trauma. Another key element is structured, goal-oriented coaching that breaks larger goals into manageable steps and tracks progress over a six-month transformation schedule.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. He will work with each person to match methods to their needs, goals, and preferences, and adjust the plan as progress is made. That shared decision-making helps ensure the work feels relevant and doable for the individual.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy fit different lives. Video helps preserve face-to-face connection, phone sessions can be easier when video is not practical, live chat supports quick check-ins, and messaging is useful for short, ongoing reflections between appointments. These options make it easier to maintain momentum, schedule around work, and stay engaged with the therapeutic process.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Control issues
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Young adult issues
- Experience
- 7 years
- Licensed
- Connecticut
- Languages
- English