About Paula
Paula Sussman is a licensed clinical social worker with 30 years of experience helping people manage stress, anxiety, relationships, and major life changes. She focuses on individual strengths and practical steps that help people feel more able and energized. Paula aims to build a respectful, trusting relationship so clients can move toward clearer goals.
Paula listens for each person's values and life story before suggesting a path forward. She uses client-centered work to follow what matters most to the person in the room.
Background and approach
Her style is warm and direct, with a gentle sense of humor mixed with compassion. She also draws on motivational interviewing to help people find their own reasons to change. That approach is useful when someone feels stuck or ambivalent about next steps.
Solution-focused tools are used to set small, doable goals and track progress between sessions. Her experience includes grief and loss, caregiving stress, chronic illness or pain, and end-of-life concerns. Paula has helped people facing loneliness, midlife transitions, and questions about purpose and self-worth.
She pays attention to practical needs as well as emotions. Paula practices in Colorado and works with adults seeking personal growth and better coping. She welcomes questions and helps people decide whether her approach is a good fit.
Her aim is to support steady, realistic change and to help people feel more capable in daily life.
How Paula's Approaches Work Online
Client-centered therapy in Paula's work means she follows what matters most to the person and reflects their thoughts and feelings back. This helps people feel heard and notice their own strengths before making changes.Motivational interviewing focuses on the person's own reasons to change and reduces resistance. It is useful when someone feels uncertain about taking steps forward and wants clarity on personal goals.
Solution-focused therapy looks for small, practical steps that can be tried right away. It helps people build momentum by setting clear, measurable goals and tracking progress between sessions.
Paula approaches choice of method as a collaboration. She will listen to your needs, discuss options, and work with you to find an approach that fits your goals and preferences. Adjustments are made over time as growth and priorities change.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to increase flexibility. Video is helpful for a full conversation; phone can work when bandwidth is limited; live chat or text messaging can be useful for brief check-ins or when typing feels easier. These formats make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule and to keep momentum between meetings.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Grief
Also listed
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Emptiness
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- Colorado
- Languages
- English
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