Claudia Stephens, LCSW

Claudia Stephens is a licensed clinical social worker with 27 years of experience helping people manage anxiety, depression, trauma, and life transitions. She uses a practical, person-focused style to help clients untangle problems and find workable steps forward. Claudia works from Virginia and brings a calm, steady presence to sessions. Her background includes long work as a clinical social worker and time as a middle school counselor. That mix gave her experience with many life stages and common family dynamics. She draws on approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, attachment work, EMDR, mindfulness, and client-centered care to shape each plan. In sessions she listens first and then helps people set clear, doable goals. Conversations often focus on skills for managing stress, improving communication, and coping with grief or loss. Practical homework and short-term strategies are used when helpful. Claudia also supports people handling parenting strain, career crossroads, and relationship or intimacy concerns. She pays attention to how family of origin issues, codependency, or abandonment fears affect daily life and choices. Her style aims to build self-compassion and clearer boundaries. Therapy can include talking, mindfulness exercises, and memory-processing where trauma is involved. Claudia works with ADHD-related struggles, compassion fatigue, and impulsivity by blending coping tools with deeper attachment work. She focuses on helping each person feel more stable and able to move forward.

How Claudia’s approaches translate to online care

Claudia uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people identify unhelpful thoughts and test new ways of behaving; this approach is useful for anxiety, depression, and stress-related problems. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at early relationship patterns and how they show up now, which can help with intimacy, abandonment fears, and family of origin issues.

She also uses client-centered techniques that prioritize listening and the client’s own goals, so therapy is shaped around what the person wants to change. Claudia will work collaboratively to choose which method or mix of methods fits best, checking in about goals and adjusting the plan as needs evolve.

Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to make care more flexible. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and shared exercises, phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited, live chat supports shorter check-ins, and messaging is useful for ongoing reflections between sessions. These options let people fit therapy into work breaks, caregiving routines, or other busy schedules while keeping treatment consistent.