About Valerie
Valerie Johnson-Cardoso greets people who are feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or stuck and helps them find practical steps forward. She draws on 30 years of experience to offer steady, nonjudgmental support. Valerie is a licensed mental health counselor - LMHC practicing in Florida and works with adults across many life concerns.
She listens for the smallest change that could make daily life easier. Sessions focus on what matters most to the person sitting across from her.
Background and approach
Valerie uses clear, simple tools so people can practice new skills between meetings and notice progress in small, manageable ways. Her background includes work in residential mental health and residential substance abuse programs. She also spent 16 years as a school teacher for students with learning differences, emotional challenges, autism, and developmental delays.
That mix of settings gives her experience with many kinds of stress and behavior patterns. Valerie has supported people through trauma, grief, addiction, and faith transitions related to religious trauma. She also helps with relationship and intimacy concerns, parenting strain, career stress, body image, and attention-related challenges.
Her approach adapts to each person rather than using a one-size-fits-all plan. In sessions she focuses on building trust and offering a calm space to name difficult feelings. The work is described together - client and therapist decide what to try and how to measure small wins.
Valerie aims to reduce self-criticism and increase self-compassion over time.
How these approaches guide online work
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice painful thoughts without getting stuck in them, and then commit to small actions that match their values. It can be useful for anxiety, chronic stress, and coping with life changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing them with concrete experiments or behavior changes to reduce symptoms like anxiety or depression. Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) centers on understanding and expressing emotional needs, which can help with intimacy and communication struggles.Choosing the right method is part of the work. Valerie will talk with each person about their goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t helped before. Together they decide which approach or combination to try and adjust plans as progress is seen.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging so people can pick what fits their day. Video is good for deeper conversations that benefit from face-to-face contact. Phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited or a quieter setup is needed. Live chat and messaging allow shorter check-ins and skill coaching between longer sessions. These options make it easier to keep therapy consistent around work, caregiving, or travel.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Hypnotherapy
- Imago Relationship Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- Florida
- Languages
- English