Shirley "Elizabeth" Loftin , LPC

Shirley "Elizabeth" Loftin is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Louisiana with four decades of clinical experience. She focuses on helping people who are coping with stress, anxiety, mood disorders, trauma, grief, and concerns common to LGBTQ clients. Her approach is warm and straightforward and she treats each person as the expert in their own life.

Clients can expect a calm, listening-first style that looks for existing strengths. Elizabeth helps people name what is hard, make small changes, and build new ways of coping. She uses practical tools and clear conversation rather than medical jargon.

Her work draws on client-centered principles that place the person's goals at the center of sessions. She also uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques to spot thinking patterns that keep problems going, and trauma-focused methods when past events are affecting day-to-day life. These approaches are used together to fit each person's needs.

Elizabeth has helped people with a wide range of concerns over her career, including bipolar disorder, panic attacks, dissociation, relationship issues, and compassion fatigue. She also supports people managing aging and caregiver stress, autism spectrum concerns, gender dysphoria, and the effects of separation or divorce.

Sessions are offered in English and conducted online by video, phone, live chat, or messaging. She works with people to set achievable goals and practical steps toward better coping and more stable mood.

Practical approaches for online therapy and healing

Client-centered therapy focuses on the person in front of the therapist. It means listening closely, following the person's goals, and helping them use their own strengths to make changes. This approach is useful for people feeling stuck, unsure, or needing support to make life decisions.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors interact. The therapist helps identify unhelpful thinking patterns and teaches simple tools to test and change them. CBT is often helpful for anxiety, panic, low mood, and coping with life changes.

Trauma-focused therapy pays attention to how past events affect a person's present life. It uses methods to reduce distress tied to memories and to build safety and coping skills. This work can help with post-traumatic stress, dissociation, and reactions after abuse or disaster.

Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with each person about their goals and preferences, and together they will decide which methods to try and how to adjust them over time.

Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is good for face-to-face conversation and teaching exercises; phone calls can work when bandwidth is limited or a quieter check-in is needed. Live chat and messaging suit short updates, reflections between sessions, or people who prefer writing. These options aim to make therapy more flexible and easier to fit into daily life.