About Valerie
Prof. Valerie Starr is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor (LCMHC) and a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) with 38 years of experience. She helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, relationship struggles, grief, trauma and abuse, addiction concerns, and issues around intimacy and self-esteem.
She also supports people dealing with parenting strain, communication problems, and identity concerns related to LGBT matters. Her style is warm and person-centered. Sessions focus on listening first, then figuring out practical steps together.
Background and approach
She avoids labels and treats each person as an individual working toward clearer goals and improved daily functioning. In practice she draws on attachment-based ideas to look at relationship patterns and on cognitive behavioral techniques to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. She also uses client-centered methods to keep the work focused on the client’s experience, and hypnotherapy when appropriate for deeper exploration.
Valerie has worked in community mental health and independent practice and has taught graduate students for eleven years as an adjunct professor. Her teaching focused on family systems therapy and ethics in counseling, which informs how she thinks about relationships and professional care. People can expect steady, respectful support aimed at building coping skills and clearer communication.
She is based in Nevada and offers help to English-speaking clients, including international clients who access sessions online.
Therapeutic approaches and online care
Attachment-based work looks at how relationships shape feelings and behavior. It helps people understand patterns in close relationships and build safer ways of relating. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on the link between thoughts, feelings, and actions and teaches concrete skills to reduce anxiety and change unhelpful behaviors. Client-centered therapy centers the client’s experience, with the therapist offering empathy and support while the client leads the pace and direction of change.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Valerie will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what feels most helpful. Together they decide which methods to try and adjust the plan as progress is made, keeping the process collaborative and flexible.
Online sessions can be done by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different needs. Video calls allow face-to-face conversations, phone sessions can be easier when less bandwidth is needed, and text or chat is useful for shorter check-ins or when writing helps express thoughts. These options make it easier to schedule therapy around work, caregiving, or travel and let people keep continuity of care across locations.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Trichotillomania
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 38 years
- Licensed
- New Hampshire, Nevada
- Languages
- English
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