About Carissa
Carissa Shobe is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Pennsylvania with 15 years of experience in mental health and substance use work. She focuses on reducing distress and helping people build skills to manage everyday stress and anxiety. Carissa uses practical tools so people can pursue personal goals and feel more in control of their lives.
She takes a trauma-informed, holistic stance that looks at strengths as well as struggles. Sessions often focus on replacing unhelpful coping habits with clearer strategies for handling triggers and strong emotions.
Background and approach
That can include skill-building for stress, anger, or substance-related patterns. Carissa draws from approaches like cognitive behavioral methods and dialectical behavior strategies to offer concrete exercises. Mindfulness practices are also used to help people notice thoughts and sensations without getting swept up in them.
The work emphasizes practice between sessions so skills become useful in real life. People come for a range of concerns such as anxiety, depression, bipolar mood challenges, trauma and abuse, and addictions. Additional areas she addresses include self-esteem, codependency, attachment struggles, and issues related to gender and sexual expression.
Her style is collaborative and goal-oriented. She helps clients set clear, manageable targets and tracks progress together. The focus is on developing tools that fit each person’s daily routines and values.
How evidence-based approaches translate to online therapy
Carissa uses cognitive behavioral techniques to help people notice and change unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors. CBT often involves short exercises, thought records, and action steps that are easy to use between sessions for issues like anxiety and depression.She also incorporates dialectical behavior therapy ideas to teach emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and clearer communication. DBT-style skills help when emotions feel overwhelming or when someone wants steadier responses to stressors.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to match methods to their goals, needs, and day-to-day life. That may mean trying an approach for a few sessions and adjusting based on what feels most useful.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video works well for longer sessions and interactive exercises, phone can fit shorter check-ins or times with limited bandwidth, and chat or text is useful for brief updates or when written reflection helps. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, school, or family routines while keeping continuity of care.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Traumatic brain injury
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 15 years
- Licensed
- Pennsylvania
- Languages
- English
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