About Sara
Sara Sutherland is a licensed social worker in Michigan who focuses on anxiety, stress, grief, depression, and life changes. She aims to make people feel seen and heard and to help them move toward change. Her style is warm and direct, and she listens first to learn what matters most to each person.
Sara studied social work and psychology at Hope College and completed a master’s degree in clinical social work at Western Michigan University.
Background and approach
She has eight years of clinical experience across independent practice, health care, and hospice settings. Those roles shaped her work with people facing health challenges, loss, and intense life transitions. In sessions she uses familiar, evidence-based methods like client-centered work, cognitive behavioral tools, and mindfulness practices.
She helps people notice unhelpful thoughts, build new coping skills, and practice small changes that add up. The approach is practical and collaborative rather than overly technical. Sara also draws on elements of dialectical behavior therapy and emotionally-focused work when emotions run high or relationships feel stuck.
She focuses on building skills for emotion regulation, communication, and closer connection. Conversations are paced to match each person’s comfort and goals. People seeking support for compassion fatigue, caregiver stress, chronic illness, addiction concerns, or identity-related struggles will find experience relevant to those issues.
Sara describes her role as offering honest support, steady listening, and guided steps toward the changes a person wants to make.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Sara often uses client-centered therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy in online work. Client-centered therapy focuses on listening, empathy, and helping people find their own answers; it helps when someone needs a supportive space to sort feelings. Cognitive behavioral therapy looks at the link between thoughts, feelings, and actions and teaches concrete skills to reduce anxiety and change unhelpful patterns.She also draws on dialectical behavior therapy when emotions feel overwhelming. DBT gives skill-based tools for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and clearer communication, which can be useful for intense stress or relationship strains. Sara treats the choice of approach as a collaboration and will help figure out which methods fit best for a person’s goals and preferences.
Online sessions are offered through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to make therapy more flexible. Video works well for longer sessions and face-to-face conversation, phone can fit a quick check-in or lower bandwidth, live chat is useful for shorter exchanges, and text messaging lets people share thoughts between sessions. These options make it easier to fit support into a busy life while still working on anxiety, grief, or other concerns.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 8 years
- Licensed
- Michigan
- Languages
- English
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