Elaine Hughes, LICSW, LCSW

Elaine Hughes is a licensed clinical social worker with 19 years of experience. She holds LICSW and LCSW credentials and practices from New Jersey. Her work focuses on stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, grief, depression, and coping with life changes.

Elaine starts by listening to what matters most to the person in front of her. She treats people as experts on their own story and looks for strengths that can be used to tackle current problems. Sessions are straightforward and practical, with room to talk about painful events and day-to-day struggles.

She uses approaches that include attachment-based work, cognitive behavioral techniques, DBT skills, emotionally-focused methods, and mindfulness. That mix helps people learn new ways to notice how they react, test small changes, and manage intense emotions. Elaine explains options plainly and helps people practice skills between sessions.

People often come to her when they feel overwhelmed by another person’s needs, when they can’t say no, or when loss and change make daily life harder. She helps people name patterns such as codependency, address communication problems, and build clearer boundaries. The emphasis is on steady steps and useful skills rather than labels.

Sessions aim to reduce shame and make tough choices easier to manage. Elaine encourages short experiments in how people relate to others and supports building routines that lower stress. To get started, people follow the site process to match and schedule an initial appointment.

How her approaches fit into online sessions