About Valerie
Valerie Ziel is a licensed clinical social worker who helps people face anxiety, depression, trauma, and big life changes. She offers clear, practical help for stress and for rebuilding self-esteem after difficult experiences. She focuses on what each person brings to the room.
Sessions start by talking about what feels most urgent, like relationship patterns, workplace strain, or body image concerns. Together she and the client map small steps toward relief and clearer thinking.
Background and approach
Valerie uses evidence-based therapeutic techniques to support people through grief, trauma and ongoing worries. She helps clients notice unhelpful patterns such as codependency, control issues, or avoidance. Then she works with them to try new responses that feel more useful in daily life.
Over 12 years in practice, she has helped people navigate abandonment fears, caregiver stress, dissociation, and the layered effects of co-morbidity. Her approach blends practical skills with attention to emotions so people can manage symptoms and make choices that match their values. Clients can expect steady, down-to-earth guidance and focused conversations about goals.
Valerie practices in New York as an LCSW and offers sessions in English. She emphasizes collaboration and helps people find ways to cope that suit their routines and responsibilities.
Therapeutic approaches and online options
Valerie draws on evidence-based therapeutic techniques to help people understand and change patterns that cause pain. One common approach focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and practicing alternatives in daily life; this helps with anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Another approach looks at attachment and relational patterns to make sense of repeated communication or trust problems and to try different ways of relating.Finding the right approach is part of the work. She collaborates with each person to choose techniques that match their goals, needs, and pace. That decision is revisited as therapy progresses so strategies can be adjusted based on what helps most.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy fit varied schedules. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions can work well when bandwidth is limited or when a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat and messaging are useful for brief updates, skill practice between sessions, or when writing helps clarify thoughts. These options make it easier to maintain continuity of care while balancing work, caregiving, or travel.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Body image
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Eating and food-related issues
- Guilt and shame
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Experience
- 12 years
- Licensed
- New York
- Languages
- English