About Kelly
Kelly Smith is a licensed clinical social worker who helps people manage stress, anxiety, depression, grief, addiction, and trauma. Kelly brings a steady, practical approach to sessions and focuses on what matters most to each person. The first conversations tend to center on immediate concerns and ways to reduce distress so people can feel more grounded quickly.
Kelly uses somatic work alongside talk-based methods to help people notice how their bodies hold tension and learn ways to release it.
Background and approach
Sessions also draw on client-centered listening to make sure each person feels heard and respected. Cognitive-behavioral techniques are used when someone wants concrete tools to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviours. With 30 years of experience, Kelly has supported people facing relationship challenges, parenting strain, identity and LGBT concerns, intimacy questions, bipolar mood issues, and ADHD-related struggles.
Kelly also addresses less-talked-about areas like abandonment, attachment concerns, body image, kink and alternative sex culture, and blended family dynamics. Kelly holds an LCSW license and practices in Virginia. Kelly has worked as a psychotherapist and clinical supervisor and brings that background into collaborative sessions that balance skill-building with emotional processing.
Conversations are warm and practical, with attention to safety and pacing. People who prefer a hands-on awareness of their body and straightforward coping strategies often find this approach helpful. If someone wants a respectful, down-to-earth therapist who combines body-focused awareness with talk therapy tools, Kelly may be a good fit.
How Kelly's Methods Work Online
Kelly uses somatic techniques and client-centered listening to help people become aware of how stress shows up in the body and to name what matters most to them. Somatic work focuses on simple body awareness and gentle movement or breath to reduce tension and ground emotion, which can be useful for anxiety, trauma responses, and chronic stress.Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes active listening and respect. Sessions focus on the person's priorities and pace, helping people feel understood before moving to change. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, when used, offers concrete skills to notice patterns of thought and behaviour and to try small experiments that can reduce distress and improve daily functioning.
Finding the right mix of approaches is a shared process. The therapist will talk with each person about goals and preferences, try methods collaboratively, and adjust the plan as needed. This meant-to-be-flexible way keeps work practical and tailored to real-life needs.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text messaging. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life, practice skills between sessions, and stay connected when in-person visits are difficult. Licensed professionals can use these formats to continue progress and adapt homework or body-awareness practices to the home setting.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- LGBT
- Relationship issues
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- New York, California, Virginia, Washington
- Languages
- English