About Michelle
Michelle DeFino is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who helps people facing anxiety, stress, depression, and problems with substance use. She works with individuals who are struggling with grief, anger, or big life changes and offers practical tools to manage day-to-day challenges. She practices in New York and conducts sessions in English.
Michelle focuses on clear, doable steps rather than long lectures. She uses conversations to identify what matters most to each person and then builds simple strategies for coping and change.
Background and approach
Sessions often include goal-setting, skill practice, and checking what works between meetings. Her background includes clinical work supporting people with mood disorders, trauma, and co-occurring substance concerns. Michelle has three years of experience as an LCSW and has spent time working in programs that support people returning from the criminal justice system.
That work shaped her approach to realistic, strengths-based care. In session she draws from client-centered methods, cognitive behavioral techniques, dialectical behavior strategies, mindfulness, and motivational interviewing. These approaches help with reducing anxious thinking, improving emotional regulation, and increasing motivation for change.
She favors interactive sessions with concrete tools to try outside appointments. People who come to Michelle can expect a straightforward, respectful tone and a focus on what will make life feel more manageable. She prefers video sessions but also offers phone, live chat, and text-based messaging when appropriate.
Sessions are scheduled through an online matching and booking process.
How Michelle’s Approaches Work Online
Michelle often combines cognitive behavioral techniques and mindfulness work in online sessions. CBT looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions connect and uses small experiments and exercises to change unhelpful patterns. Mindfulness practices help people notice their thoughts and bodily sensations so they can respond more calmly to stress.She approaches treatment collaboratively. The therapist and client discuss needs, goals, and preferences and then choose which methods to try. That shared process helps shape a plan that fits the person’s life and pace.
Online therapy offers several practical benefits for this work. Video calls allow for face-to-face conversation and demonstrations of skills. Phone sessions require less bandwidth and can be easier during a busy day. Live chat and text-based messaging are useful for brief check-ins, tracking progress, or sending exercises between meetings. These options make it easier to keep consistent care while fitting sessions into a varied schedule.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Addictions
- Grief
- Anger management
Also listed
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Impulsivity
- Money and financial issues
- Parenting issues
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 3 years
- Licensed
- New Jersey, New York
- Languages
- English
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