Susan Dawson , LMHC

Susan Dawson is a Florida licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) with 17 years of experience helping people through tough life moments. She focuses on stress, anxiety, depression, anger, addiction, and self-esteem concerns and works with adults facing relationship and intimacy difficulties as well as parenting and career stresses.

Her sessions are practical and straightforward. She listens first, then helps clients set clear goals. Susan uses tools from client-centered work, cognitive behavioral ideas, and mindfulness to help people notice unhelpful patterns and try new ways of coping.

Susan also addresses grief, trauma and abuse, mood disorders, and issues that touch identity such as LGBT concerns, immigration-related stress, and HIV/AIDS. She supports people dealing with commitment problems, communication breakdowns, infidelity, and the fallout of divorce or separation.

When addiction or substance use is part of the picture, she brings motivational interviewing and focused strategies to help people find motivation and plan next steps. She also helps with anger, guilt and shame, feelings of emptiness, and struggles with life purpose.

Sessions aim to be collaborative and down-to-earth. Susan helps clients build skills they can use between meetings, such as grounding practices, thought-challenging, and small behavior changes. She guides each person toward workable steps that fit their life and values.

Approaches that translate well to online care

Client-centered work focuses on listening and building a respectful relationship. It helps people feel heard and clarifies what they want to change in life. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) looks at thoughts, behaviors, and emotions and teaches practical exercises to reduce anxiety, depression, and mood symptoms. Emotionally-focused therapy (EFT) helps people notice and shift patterns in close relationships and can be useful for intimacy and communication struggles.

Choosing the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn't helped before. Together they will try methods that fit the client's life and adjust as needed over time in a collaborative way.

Online appointments can be scheduled as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video is useful for longer sessions and when visual cues help the work. Phone sessions can be a good fit when bandwidth is limited or for a quick check-in. Live chat and messaging allow brief, ongoing contact and can help people practice skills between sessions. These options make therapy more flexible for work, parenting, travel, and different daily rhythms, while letting therapists use CBT, mindfulness practices, and emotionally-focused exercises in real time.