About Gretchen
Gretchen Raring is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with 24 years of experience. She focuses on helping people who feel overwhelmed by anxiety, stress, relationship problems, grief, or life changes. Her style is warm and down-to-earth, aiming to make therapy feel manageable and practical for busy lives.
Gretchen meets each person where they are and works side-by-side to set clear goals.
Background and approach
She blends listening with action, offering concrete tools like simple coping skills and small behavior changes. Sessions move at a pace that feels right for the client, with an emphasis on what can help day to day. Her background includes work in mental health, addiction services, homelessness support, and settings that involve incarceration and veterans.
That range shaped a flexible approach that adapts to many stressors and life circumstances. She draws on both short-term strategies and deeper conversations about patterns and relationships. Gretchen uses several well-known approaches including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Attachment-Based ideas to guide the work.
Those methods are used in practical ways to address worry, mood, and relationship patterns rather than as abstract models. She offers sessions to adults from her New Jersey practice in English. Treatment plans are collaborative, and she supports people working through issues like ADHD, addiction, chronic pain, parenting strain, and career stress.
The focus is on building skills and clarity that carry into everyday life.
Approach-driven care you can join online
Gretchen commonly draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). ACT helps people notice thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them, and it emphasizes taking actions that match personal values. CBT looks at the connections between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and teaches skills to change unhelpful patterns and reduce anxiety.Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. Gretchen will talk with each person about their goals and preferences and recommend techniques that match those needs. Together they adjust methods over time so the work stays relevant and useful.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy fit into daily life. Video visits allow face-to-face conversation when a deeper interaction is helpful. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or for quick check-ins. Live chat and text-based messaging work well for short updates, skill practice between sessions, or when typing feels more comfortable. These options aim to make it simpler to keep therapy consistent alongside work, caregiving, or other commitments.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 24 years
- Licensed
- New Jersey, Florida, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Arizona
- Languages
- English
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