About Shawn
Shawn Mcgivern is an LMHC based in Massachusetts with 27 years of clinical experience. She focuses on practical help for anxiety, stress, depression, and relationship struggles. Shawn works with people facing trauma, grief, identity questions, and problems at work or home.
She uses clear, collaborative methods to help people sort through strong emotions. Sessions often focus on building self-understanding, improving communication, and creating simple strategies to manage daily life. Shawn emphasizes strengths and helps clients find steps that feel doable.
Background and approach
Her approach blends several research-informed methods. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is used to notice and shift unhelpful thinking and behavior. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people clarify values and take action despite difficult feelings.
Attachment-Based techniques look at how early relationships shape current patterns. Shawn also draws on Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills and a client-centered stance to keep sessions grounded and practical. She works with adults on issues such as eating and sleeping problems, intimacy and commitment concerns, codependency, caregiving stress, and identity-related challenges.
She supports people navigating divorce, adoption and foster care questions, abandonment issues, and aging-related stress. Therapy sessions are offered by video, phone, live chat, or text messaging. Shawn aims to adapt the work to each person’s pace and life demands.
The focus is on making steady, useful progress toward clearer goals.
How therapy approaches adapt to online care
Shawn often uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people identify unhelpful thoughts and change patterns that keep problems going; this approach works well for anxiety, mood, and sleep troubles. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is also part of her work and focuses on clarifying values and taking small meaningful steps even when feelings are hard. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at relationship patterns and how early connections shape current reactions, which can help with intimacy and communication concerns.Deciding which approach to use is collaborative. Shawn will discuss goals, preferences, and what has or hasn't helped in the past, then tailor methods to each person's situation. That means techniques can be mixed and adjusted over time as progress or obstacles become clear.
Offering video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging makes therapy more flexible. Video allows face-to-face conversation for skills practice and deeper exchanges. Phone sessions need less bandwidth and can fit into a work break. Live chat and text are useful for brief check-ins, coaching-style support, or when writing feels easier than speaking. These options help people keep therapy consistent around work, caregiving, and daily life demands.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trichotillomania
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Gottman Method
- Imago Relationship Therapy
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 27 years
- Licensed
- Massachusetts
- Languages
- English
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