Valerie Smith, LCSW

Valerie Smith is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in Virginia with 30 years of experience. She sees adults who are struggling with stress, anxiety, depression, relationship problems, grief, addictions, and other life changes. Valerie often works with people who feel stuck in codependent patterns or who have trouble asserting boundaries.

Her style is straightforward and conversational. She prefers talking through problems rather than using a rapid-fire question approach. In sessions she and the client look at current challenges and practical steps that can reduce distress and improve daily functioning.

Valerie draws on a mix of approaches, including client-centered work, cognitive behavioral ideas, psychodynamic thinking, solution-focused strategies, and trauma-focused methods. She uses these to help people understand how past experiences shape current reactions and to develop concrete coping tools.

Across three decades she has worked in public settings, general and psychiatric hospitals, and private practice. That background gives her perspective on common workplace pressures, grief, substance issues, and caregiving stresses.

In sessions she offers practical suggestions, helps identify unhelpful childhood beliefs, and looks for small changes that make daily life easier. She also supports people who are dealing with aging, chronic illness, fertility concerns, first responder stress, and other specific strains.

To begin she asks about the problems that matter most now and then outlines simple goals and steps. Valerie frames therapy as a collaborative effort: she listens, reflects, and proposes approaches clients can try between sessions.

How Valerie’s approaches translate to online work