About Michael
Michael Smith is a licensed mental health counselor with 38 years of experience based in New York. He focuses on helping people facing anxiety, depression, stress, mood swings, addictions, and life transitions. His approach is calm and straightforward, aimed at practical steps a person can use right away.
In sessions he listens closely and helps clients name what feels most urgent. He uses clear tools to manage anger, panic, obsessive thoughts, sleep problems, and low self-esteem.
Background and approach
He also supports people dealing with grief, intimacy concerns, career stress, and challenges tied to neurodiversity or cognitive differences. Michael draws on client-centered methods to make space for each person's experience. He pairs that with cognitive behavioral techniques to spot unhelpful thinking and build healthier routines.
Mindfulness is used to reduce reactivity and improve focus during stressful moments. He also brings existential ideas into the conversation to help people wrestle with meaning, life purpose, and big transitions. Motivational interviewing helps when change feels difficult, especially around addictions or habit shifts.
Together these approaches create a practical framework for short- and longer-term goals. Sessions are offered by video, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different schedules. Michael works with adults on a range of concerns and combines listening with concrete strategies to help people move forward.
How Michael’s Approaches Work Online
Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and reflecting so people feel understood and can find their own answers; this is helpful for emotional distress, grief, and relationship concerns. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helps identify unhelpful thoughts and build new habits with practical exercises, which works well for anxiety, depression, sleep and panic symptoms. Mindfulness therapy teaches simple attention and breathing practices to reduce reactivity and ease stress in daily life.Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to pick and adapt methods based on goals, preferences, and how they respond to different tools. Sessions can shift over time from listening and meaning-focused conversation to skill-building and behavior change as needed.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and exercises, phone sessions can fit a walk or a break at work, live chat is useful for shorter check-ins, and text messaging supports ongoing reflection between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy lives while using the approaches described above.
Frequently asked questions
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What is his background and experience?
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
Also works with
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Antisocial personality
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Career difficulties
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Grief
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 38 years
- Licensed
- New York
- Languages
- English