Margaret Swanson, LICSW

Margaret Swanson is a licensed independent clinical social worker (LICSW) in Vermont who helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, grief, addiction, and challenges around identity and relationships, including jealousy. She has 25 years of experience and focuses on practical steps people can take to feel steadier and more in control.

She uses everyday language in sessions and aims to make therapy feel understandable and useful. Sessions often include talking through patterns, learning ways to manage strong emotions, and practicing new communication skills. She emphasizes building self-awareness and small, doable changes that add up over time.

Margaret draws from several approaches to match what each person needs. This can mean working on values and acceptance, addressing attachment and how early relationships shape current struggles, or using skills to manage thinking and behavior. She adapts methods to fit a person’s goals rather than following one fixed plan.

Clients who come to her often want help with parenting stress, work pressure, trauma recovery, or living with mood and attention challenges. She also supports people dealing with relationship strain, body image concerns, caregiving stress, and life transitions.

Her style is steady and compassionate. She encourages realistic goals, teaches coping tools, and helps people practice new ways of responding. To begin, prospective clients use the site Start Therapy process to match and schedule a first session.

Approaches that guide online work and choice

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, focuses on clarifying what matters to a person and taking small actions toward those values even when feelings are hard. It can help with anxiety, depression, and coping with life changes by teaching practical ways to stay engaged with meaningful goals.

Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships shape current patterns in close relationships. It helps people understand reactions like jealousy or mistrust and learn new ways of connecting and communicating with others.

Margaret treats the choice of approach as a team effort. She will talk with each client about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t helped in the past. Together they decide which methods to try and adjust the plan as progress and needs change.

Confirm the session formats available before booking so you know how meetings will be held. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy week, reduce travel time, and allow for check-ins during work breaks or between appointments. It can also make some kinds of practice work easier to repeat at home and let people try techniques in their usual routines. Licensed professionals can help tailor sessions so they match day-to-day life and personal goals.