About Kristen
Kristen Smith is a licensed mental health counselor practicing in Florida with 27 years of experience. She focuses on helping people facing addictions, relationship and intimacy concerns, trauma and abuse, depression, anxiety, and struggles with self-esteem and life purpose. Kristen emphasizes straightforward support and practical steps over jargon.
She believes people carry strengths they can use to move forward and offers steady guidance through change. Her approach centers on listening first.
Background and approach
She uses client-centered methods to understand each person’s story and priorities. From there she draws on cognitive behavioral techniques to spot and change unhelpful thinking patterns. She also integrates elements of dialectical behavior therapy for emotional regulation and coping skills.
Sessions aim to feel collaborative and goal-focused. Kristen helps people set clear, manageable goals and works on small, concrete actions between sessions. She supports efforts to rebuild trust, manage cravings or impulses, and reduce patterns that cause stress or conflict.
She has worked with a wide range of concerns over nearly three decades, including grief, parenting stress, eating and sleeping problems, ADHD, and career transitions. Her style is practical, calm, and affirming. Kristen explains tools in everyday language and practices at a pace that fits each person.
People who want clear techniques alongside empathic listening often find this approach useful. Kristen meets people where they are and partners with them to create realistic next steps toward a more manageable, meaningful life.
How her approaches translate to online therapy
Kristen uses client-centered therapy to start by understanding what matters most to each person and to build a collaborative plan. This approach focuses on listening and reflecting so people feel heard and their priorities drive the work.She also uses cognitive behavioral therapy, which involves identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing practical changes in behavior. CBT is useful for anxiety, depression, sleep and eating concerns, and for reframing patterns that fuel stress.
Dialectical behavior therapy techniques are incorporated when emotional regulation and distress tolerance are needed. DBT skills teach concrete ways to calm intense feelings, reduce impulsive reactions, and improve interpersonal effectiveness.
Kristen treats finding the right approach as a team effort. She will talk with each person about their goals and try ideas that fit their situation, adjusting methods as needed so the work stays relevant and doable.
Online formats offer flexibility. Video calls let people work face to face when visual connection helps. Phone sessions can be a good shorter check-in or when bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text-based messaging let people share thoughts between sessions or when a quick check-in is helpful. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, or busy schedules.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also works with
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 27 years
- Licensed
- Florida
- Languages
- English