About Willow
Willow Wakeley-Smith draws on Client-Centered and cognitive approaches to help people manage stress, anxiety, parenting challenges, and mood struggles. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, LCSW, practicing in Missouri. Her style is straightforward and respectful, with attention to practical progress and daily life impact.
She writes treatment plans to fit each person rather than using one-size-fits-all approaches. Sessions focus on realistic goals, small steps, and strategies that can be used between visits.
Background and approach
Willow pays attention to how symptoms affect school, work, and family routines when she helps people plan changes. Before clinical work with adults she spent more than ten years in professional roles supporting children in school settings. That experience informs how she talks about parenting stress, learning differences, and behavior supports.
She also has five years of focused clinical experience working with adults who have moderate to significant mental health needs. Willow includes tools from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and mindfulness to help with worry, low mood, and sleep problems. She also uses motivational interviewing to help with addiction and behavioral change and the Gottman Method for relationship skills.
These approaches are mixed to match a person’s goals and strengths. She works with a wide range of concerns including ADHD, grief, trauma and abuse, bipolar mood concerns, and issues around gender and sexual identity. Willow aims to track progress so people can see practical changes in daily life and parenting routines.
How Willow’s Approaches Work Online
Willow often uses Client-Centered Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in online work. Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and building trust so people can say what matters to them. It helps when someone needs a calm space to sort feelings and decisions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy looks at thoughts, feelings, and actions to find small, concrete changes that reduce anxiety or low mood.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. Willow will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t worked before. Together they try methods and adjust plans until something feels useful and realistic for daily life.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to offer flexibility. Video calls let people use visual cues and longer conversations. Phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited or a simpler check-in is needed. Live chat and text messaging can be used for brief check-ins, homework support, or when someone prefers written communication. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, school, or family routines.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Parenting issues
- Bipolar disorder
Also works with
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Antisocial personality
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Personality disorders
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed
- Missouri
- Languages
- English