About Shana
Shana Williams-Leary greets people with a calm, practical style. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 24 years of experience. Shana focuses on helping adults handle stress, anxiety, trauma, grief, relationship problems, addiction, and life changes.
She offers sessions in English and Spanish and works with clients in Florida and internationally. Shana begins by listening to where a person is now. She then tailors an approach that fits the person’s goals and pace.
Background and approach
Sessions may be solution-focused and brief, or they may involve longer work on trauma, attachment, or coping skills. She often uses tools from cognitive behavioral and mindfulness approaches to build skills and reduce distress. Her work includes addressing PTSD, abuse, and both primary and secondary traumas.
She also has experience supporting people with bipolar disorder, dissociation, chronic mental illness, chronic pain and medical adjustments, and caregiver stress. She understands life transitions, blended family concerns, aging issues, and the stresses of expatriate life. Shana describes her style as warm, accepting, and strength-based.
She uses motivational interviewing to clarify what a person wants to change and why. From there she adds skill-building, cognitive behavioral techniques, and a family systems perspective when relationships are part of the challenge. Many people find it helpful that she has worked in inpatient crisis and outpatient settings.
That background shapes how she responds to intense moments and to everyday concerns. She aims to create a respectful space where people can be heard and begin practical steps toward feeling better.
How therapeutic approaches translate to online care
Attachment-based work focuses on how early relationships shape feelings and trust. Online sessions use conversation and reflective exercises to rebuild healthier ways of relating and to address attachment wounds that affect adult relationships.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and try different behaviors. In online sessions this looks like setting simple practice tasks, tracking thoughts between meetings, and learning skills to reduce anxiety or depression.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will listen to goals, try methods that fit those goals, and adjust based on what helps. That collaboration makes it easier to pick tools that feel useful and doable for each person.
Online formats offer flexibility for different needs. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation, phone sessions use less bandwidth and can fit a work break, live chat works for brief check-ins, and text messaging supports ongoing reflection between meetings. These options help people keep therapy consistent while fitting it into everyday life.
Frequently asked questions
What kinds of concerns can be addressed in sessions?
How would you describe the therapeutic style?
What is her professional background?
What are her credentials and where is she based?
Which languages are supported and can international clients participate?
What session formats are available?
How is cost handled for sessions?
What steps are involved in getting started?
Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Trauma and abuse
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hearing impaired
- HIV / AIDS
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 24 years
- Licensed
- Florida, Maine, Utah, Arizona
- Languages
- English, Spanish