Donna Smith

Donna Smith is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) based in New York with 35 years of experience. She focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, anger, grief, relationship struggles, depression, addictions, and related concerns. Donna aims to build a trusting, hopeful connection and to walk alongside clients as they work toward the future they imagine.

She uses a collaborative style and invites people to set the pace and direction of therapy. Sessions are conversational and practical, with an emphasis on real-life change. Donna draws on creative writing and personal life experience alongside clinical methods to help people tell and reshape their story.

Her background includes a master’s-level counselor education from the University of Rochester and decades spent in multiple mental health settings. That experience informs an approach that blends skills-based strategies with emotional understanding. She frames therapy as teamwork where the client’s goals lead the work.

Donna commonly integrates exercises that help manage strong feelings, improve communication, and increase day-to-day coping. She also supports clients facing identity and life-transition stresses, including LGBT concerns, parenting strain, aging and family-of-origin issues. Practical tools are paired with attention to feelings and relationships.

People who choose her can expect steady, patient guidance and a focus on usable steps between sessions. Donna encourages questions and works to make therapy feel clear and manageable from the first meeting.

Therapeutic approaches and online care

Donna often uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in her work. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on clarifying personal values and taking action toward them while learning to live with difficult thoughts and feelings. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) breaks problems into thought and behavior patterns and teaches practical skills to change habits that keep problems going.

She views choosing an approach as a shared decision. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, preferences, and which methods feel like the best fit. Together they can adjust strategies over time so the work matches changing needs.

The original biography did not specify which online formats are used, so please confirm current session options before booking. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy life, reduce travel time, and allow check-ins from different locations. It can also support steady work on emotion regulation, communication, and coping skills between in-person visits when both parties agree on the format.