About Shawn
Shawn Smith is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) in Louisiana with 30 years of experience. She focuses on helping people recover from trauma, manage stress and anxiety, and rebuild self-esteem. Shawn uses practical, straightforward approaches to guide people through hard life changes.
She centers sessions on listening and on the client's goals. Sessions often include skills for calming anxiety, steps to improve communication, and strategies to cope with grief or anger.
Background and approach
Shawn draws on client-centered methods to respond to each person’s values and needs. Many sessions mix cognitive behavioral techniques and mindfulness tools. That combination helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and practice new patterns in daily life.
Motivational interviewing is used when someone wants to change but feels stuck. Shawn has spent much of her career supporting survivors of trauma and people affected by domestic violence and sexual assault. She also focuses on parenting concerns, relationship problems, and issues common to young adults and veterans.
Her approach respects cultural background and personal history. In therapy she aims to make progress feel manageable. Shawn helps people set clear, small goals and build skills step by step.
The work is collaborative and paced to each person's needs.
Practical approaches for online healing
Shawn commonly uses client-centered techniques that focus on the person's goals and values. This approach means sessions start with listening to what matters most and tailoring the work to those priorities. It helps when someone needs a supportive, collaborative space to name problems and set goals.She also uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people notice thought patterns and try different responses. CBT is useful for anxiety, depression, and stress because it breaks problems into clear steps you can practice between sessions. Dialectical behavior therapy skills are used to teach emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and improved communication in everyday situations.
Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the process. Shawn works together with each person to choose methods that fit their needs, goals, and comfort level. That collaborative decision-making helps make therapy practical and relevant.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone, live chat, and text-based messaging to provide flexibility. Video is helpful when visual cues matter, while phone calls can fit into a short break. Live chat or text messaging can be useful for quick check-ins or when typing feels easier than speaking. These options make it simpler to keep therapy consistent amid busy schedules.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Family conflicts
- Trauma and abuse
- Self esteem
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Anger management
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Domestic violence
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Life purpose
- Parenting issues
- Relationship issues
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Stress, Anxiety
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- Louisiana
- Languages
- English