About Ellen
Ellen Silbert is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) based in Massachusetts who helps people manage stress and anxiety. She brings four decades of experience supporting people through grief, addiction, relationship strain, parenting challenges, and life changes. Ellen uses plain, direct conversation to help people find practical next steps.
She aims to build a calm, open space where people feel heard and respected. Her background includes work across many care settings, from labor and delivery to hospice.
Background and approach
Ellen earned a Master of Arts in Clinical Social Work from New York University in 1984. That long clinical history means she is comfortable with a wide range of emotional and medical concerns, including chronic illness, caregiving stress, and attachment issues. In sessions she leans on client-centered methods and cognitive behavioral techniques to help people notice unhelpful thoughts and try new behaviors.
She also uses emotionally focused and mindfulness-based approaches to address relationship patterns and manage strong feelings. Motivational interviewing is part of her toolbox when people want focused support making life changes. Ellen offers a mix of messaging, live chat, phone sessions, and video-style options to fit different needs and schedules.
She typically checks messages daily and notes that scheduling can be flexible when discussed directly. Her style is steady, practical, and compassionate, aimed at helping people move forward from anxious or overwhelming moments. People who want straightforward, experienced guidance with anxiety, depression, parenting concerns, or long-term caregiving issues will find a seasoned clinician in Ellen.
She emphasizes collaboration and clear steps during the work together.
How Ellen’s Approaches Translate to Online Sessions
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on creating a respectful, non-judgmental space where the person leads the pace of change. This approach helps when someone needs to be heard and to build trust before tackling harder steps. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at the link between thoughts, feelings, and actions and gives concrete tools to reduce anxiety and improve sleep or mood. Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) helps people identify and change patterns in relationships by naming feelings and responses.Choosing the right approach is a joint process. Ellen will talk with each person about their goals, preferences, and what has or hasn't helped before. Together they decide which methods to try and adjust them over time based on what works for the individual.
Online therapy offers flexible ways to connect. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation for deeper work. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can fit a break during a busy day. Live chat and text-based messaging are useful for quick check-ins, coaching-style support, or when someone prefers writing instead of speaking. These options make it easier to keep therapy going around work, caregiving, or health demands.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Grief
Also listed
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Midlife crisis
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 40 years
- Licensed
- Massachusetts
- Languages
- English
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