Karin Gardner, LICSW, LCSW

Karin Gardner is a licensed psychotherapist who uses cognitive behavioral approaches to help people manage stress and anxiety. She holds LICSW and LCSW credentials and works with adults in New York. Karin writes plainly and focuses on practical steps people can use right away.

She has seven years of clinical experience helping people through depression, grief, and major life changes. Karin also assists with relationship strain, family conflict, sleep problems, parenting stress, and career concerns. She addresses both immediate symptoms and patterns that keep problems coming back.

Karin favors a person-centered style that centers each person's strengths and values. She combines that outlook with techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy to build coping skills and change unhelpful thinking. Dialectical behavior strategies and attachment-based ideas are available when they fit a person's goals.

Sessions are collaborative and practical. Karin helps clients set clear goals, try small experiments between sessions, and track what works. She explains tools in everyday language and adjusts steps to match each person's pace and needs.

People who are coping with chronic illness, caregiver stress, trauma, or identity and body image concerns will find focused attention on both symptoms and life context. Karin aims to help clients move toward more stable mood, better sleep, clearer boundaries, and more satisfying relationships.

If someone is ready to start, Karin supports them through the first steps of matching goals to a plan and scheduling a first meeting.

How Karin’s approaches work online

CBT helps people identify unhelpful thoughts and test them with small behavioral experiments. It can reduce anxiety, improve mood, and clarify how thoughts affect actions. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy focuses on values and taking committed steps even when emotions are difficult, which can help with persistent worry, grief, and life transitions. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships shape current patterns and supports building healthier connections and clearer boundaries.

Karin treats choosing an approach as a collaborative process. She will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what has or has not worked before. Together they decide which methods to try and adjust the plan as progress is made or new needs appear.

Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different schedules and needs. Video lets people practice skills in real time, phone calls work well when bandwidth is limited, and text or chat can be useful for brief check-ins or when someone prefers shorter written exchanges. These options make it easier to keep consistent appointments and to use therapy tools between sessions.