Donna Smith, LMHC

Donna Smith is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) based in New York with 35 years of clinical experience. She helps people facing stress, anxiety, grief, depression, relationship concerns, and issues related to identity including LGBT matters and gender dysphoria. Donna also supports those coping with addiction, trauma and abuse, intimacy struggles, parenting strains, and challenges like ADHD and bipolar mood concerns.

Donna offers a calm, person-centered way of working. She prefers one-on-one sessions where the client leads the pace. She sees therapy as a partnership and uses listening, questions, and practical tools to help people move toward the life they want.

Her background includes a master’s-level counseling education from the University of Rochester and decades of work across mental health settings. That experience informs a flexible approach that draws on several therapeutic methods rather than a single technique.

In sessions she blends acceptance-based ideas with practical skills from cognitive approaches and emotion-focused work. She also uses dialectical behavior strategies when people need help with intense emotions and interpersonal patterns. Writing and storytelling inform her style; she often invites people to reflect on the stories that shape their choices.

Donna describes her role as a guide who walks alongside clients. She aims to create an open, trusting, and hopeful space where people can explore loss, conflict, control issues, codependency, attachment struggles, and the everyday pressures of life. To begin, readers should confirm current session options before booking.

How Donna’s approaches translate to online work

Donna uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them, then choose actions that match their values. This approach can help with anxiety, grief, and life transitions by focusing on what matters most.

She also draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to identify unhelpful thinking patterns and test new behaviors. CBT is useful for stress, depression, and many day-to-day problems because it offers concrete skills to try between sessions.

Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. Donna will talk with each person about their goals and preferences and suggest methods that fit. Together they decide what to try first and adjust as progress continues.

Session formats are not listed in the biography, so readers should confirm the available online options before booking. Many people find online sessions helpful because they can fit therapy into a work break, avoid travel time, and keep appointments consistent when life is busy. Others prefer shorter check-ins some weeks and longer sessions on others; these preferences can be discussed and arranged with the therapist.