Wendy Goffena , LCSW

Wendy Goffena is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with nine years of clinical therapy experience and a total of 24 years working in mental health services. She practices in Central Montana at a community mental health center, serving adults and older adults across a wide age range. Her caseload includes military veterans, people coping with common mental health concerns, individuals with severe mental illness or disabilities, and court-mandated clients. She provides care to individuals and families affected by depression, anxiety, PTSD, various forms of abuse and trauma, complex grief and loss, anger management issues, and interpersonal challenges that affect home, family, and work life.

Her professional experience spans multiple settings, including five years in a rural county mental health center, two years in medical social work supporting patients with advanced chronic kidney failure, sixteen years in an inpatient residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed youth ages 8 to 18, three years working with adolescent girls in a Department of Justice correctional facility, one year in Child Protective Services, and four years providing services and case management for partial and intensive outpatient day treatment programs in an alternative school.

A Montana native from a farming and ranching background, she earned an undergraduate degree in Elementary Education from Montana State University in Billings and taught in small communities for seven years. She returned to graduate school in 2013 and graduated with honors in 2015 with a Master of Social Work from Walla Walla University Billings satellite campus. She completed licensure requirements and has held the LCSW credential for nine years.

Her therapeutic stance is client-centered, emphasizing that clients are experts on their own lives and collaborators in the change process. Drawing on strengths-based work and Motivational Interviewing, she integrates multiple modalities to help clients identify strengths and set achievable goals. She regularly uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to explore links among thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, Dialectical Behavior Therapy to teach mood regulation and interpersonal skills, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to build psychological flexibility through acceptance and mindfulness, and EMDR to assist with processing past trauma. Her aim is to help clients increase confidence, improve coping, and move toward a life with greater joy and freedom from distress. Outside of work she enjoys Montana's outdoors through hiking, fishing, camping, exploring historical sites, rock-hounding, and gardening, and she is an avid artist.

Therapeutic Approaches and Online Care

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on acceptance, mindfulness, and values-driven action. It helps clients build psychological flexibility so they can move toward what matters to them even when difficult thoughts or feelings arise.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) examines the relationships among thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. By identifying unhelpful thinking patterns and testing new behaviors, clients can learn practical strategies to reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other common concerns.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) offers a structured method for processing traumatic memories that continue to affect daily functioning and relationships. It can be a useful option when past events are contributing to present distress.

Choosing the right approach is part of the work itself. Wendy collaborates with each person to assess needs, goals, and preferences, and together they determine which methods to try and how to adapt them over time.

Online therapy with a licensed professional provides flexible options for care - including video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging - making it easier to fit sessions into busy schedules or to get support from a familiar environment. These formats can increase accessibility and continuity of care while allowing therapists and clients to tailor treatment to individual routines and needs.