Shana Williams-Leary , LCSW

Shana Williams-Leary is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with 24 years of clinical experience providing care across inpatient crisis units and outpatient counseling settings. She has worked in Florida, Utah, Maine, Arizona, and several other countries with clients ranging in age from 4 to 85, and she most often works with adults aged 18 and over in individual sessions. As an LCSW she holds a license to provide clinical mental health services and therapy.

Known for a flexible, client-centered beginning to care, she meets people where they are and tailors interventions to each person’s needs. Her specialty is trauma work, including PTSD from abuse and both primary and secondary traumas. She is a Certified TIST practitioner - Trauma-informed Stabilization & Treatment - and has advanced training in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), including the Flash Technique. Her practice has also included people living with chronic serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dissociative conditions, and major depression, as well as those navigating life transitions, expatriate adjustment, high sensitivity, developmental delays, and middle-stage dementia alongside their caregivers.

Her therapeutic style is eclectic and warm, emphasizing acceptance, positive regard, and trust-building while remaining capable of focused, brief, solution-oriented work when appropriate. She uses Motivational Interviewing to identify what a person truly wants and their levels of readiness, then shifts into strengths-based, skill-building strategies using cognitive-behavioral and humanistic techniques within a family systems and developmental framework. She regards therapy as a meaningful partnership and approaches each person with respect, compassion, and a commitment to support their path toward growth.

Therapeutic Approaches for Online Trauma and Life Challenges

Shana Williams-Leary integrates several well-established methods into her online practice to address trauma, mood, and relational concerns. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps clients identify and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors that contribute to anxiety, depression, and daily stress, offering practical tools for symptom relief and coping. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a trauma-focused approach that can help process distressing memories and reduce their emotional intensity; her training includes the Flash Technique to ease processing of difficult material. Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes empathy, acceptance, and collaboration, creating a supportive space where clients set the pace and focus for exploration and growth.

Determining the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist works with each person to assess needs, goals, and preferences, adjusting methods over time so treatment fits the individual rather than forcing a single model onto every case.

Online sessions by video, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging offer flexibility for varied schedules and locations, and make it easier to maintain continuity of care during life transitions. Licensed professionals, including therapists who use these approaches, can adapt techniques effectively to remote formats to support ongoing progress and accessibility.