About John
John Shafer is an LCSW with 25 years of clinical experience. He uses straightforward methods to help people manage stress, anxiety, depression, and life changes. He offers care in New York and works with a wide range of concerns including trauma, addictions, grief, and relationship or intimacy-related issues.
He learned in community mental health, school-based settings, and both city and suburban practices. That mix of settings shaped how he talks with people and how he adapts therapy to daily life.
Background and approach
John has worked with people across many ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, and he has pursued ongoing diversity training to better address racial, ethnic, and gender identity concerns. In session he draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy alongside client-centered and existential ideas.
He focuses on practical skills - noticing thoughts, making values-based choices, and practicing new coping habits. Sessions can include short exercises, skill coaching, and talking through current problems. John also supports concerns like ADHD, parenting stress, caregiver strain, chronic illness, and career issues.
He offers individual and group approaches and tailors the plan to what the person says they need. His background includes work with adoption and foster care matters, attachment issues, and communication problems. People meet him for structured skill work or for open-ended conversations about meaning and values.
He aims to collaborate on goals that fit everyday life and to help people build habits that make stress and anxiety easier to manage over time.
Approaches that translate to online therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people notice thoughts and choose actions that match their values. It can be useful for anxiety, stress, and coping with life changes by focusing on small, value-driven steps. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on identifying unhelpful thought patterns and testing new behaviors to reduce symptoms and improve daily functioning. It works well for anxiety, depression, sleeping issues, and many stress reactions.Finding the right approach is part of the process and will be collaborative. The therapist will discuss goals, try techniques, and adjust the plan based on what helps most. That way sessions match the person's needs and preferences over time.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different schedules and situations. Video is useful for in-depth work and skill coaching, phone can be a shorter check-in or when bandwidth is limited, and messaging supports quick reflections or ongoing skills practice. These options make it easier to keep regular contact and to practice new habits between meetings.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Cancer
- 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
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- New York
- Languages
- English
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