About Stephen
Stephen Dexter is a licensed clinical professional counselor in Maine with 12 years of experience. He draws on long experience in substance use and co-occurring disorders and a history of working directly in people’s homes. He aims to offer steady guidance during very hard moments.
Early in his career he spent three years as an in-home counselor helping children ages 6-16 who were struggling with behavior and strong emotions. After that he worked extensively with people facing addiction and related mental health challenges.
Background and approach
He also has experience doing one-on-one therapy, couples work, group counseling, and in-home sessions. Stephen says his recovery experience informs the way he relates to people who are struggling with addictive thinking. He focuses on finding the patterns behind behaviors so people can see different choices.
He also helps with anxiety, depression, stress, eating and intimacy-related problems. His approach combines practical, client-centered conversation with tools from cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy. He uses mindfulness and elements of Jungian work when those ideas fit a person’s needs.
Sessions are conversational and aimed at skills people can use between meetings. Stephen is comfortable supporting people through parenting stress, relationship strain, career transitions, grief, and caregiver burnout. He encourages clients to explore spiritual resources if that is meaningful to them.
He works in English and accepts international clients through online formats.
Therapy approaches and online options for practical change
Client-centered therapy focuses on the person in the room. It involves listening closely and shaping sessions around what matters most to the client, which helps people feel heard and decide next steps. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, looks at thoughts and behaviors and teaches concrete exercises to reduce anxiety, manage mood, and change unhelpful patterns. Dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, adds skill-building for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and improved interpersonal communication and can be helpful for strong emotions and relationship strain.Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work. Stephen will collaborate with clients to choose what fits their goals, needs, and preferences. That might mean starting with skills-focused CBT tools, adding DBT strategies for emotion moments, or using client-centered conversation to explore meaning and spirituality.
Online therapy makes these approaches more flexible. Video calls let you work face to face without travel. Phone sessions are useful when bandwidth is limited or a camera-free conversation is preferred. Live chat and text-based messaging support shorter check-ins, on-the-go coping, and ongoing progress between sessions. These formats make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules and to maintain continuity during life changes.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Multicultural concerns
- Parenting issues
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 12 years
- Licensed
- Maine
- Languages
- English
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