Susan MacDonald

Susan MacDonald is a Rhode Island LMHC - licensed mental health counselor - with 14 years of clinical experience. She focuses on stress, anxiety, depression, relationship concerns, self-esteem, and coping with life changes. She also addresses issues such as codependency, communication problems, divorce and separation, emptiness, and life purpose.

Susan uses straightforward conversation to help people sort through what matters right now. She listens to how everyday routines and relationships affect mood and motivation. Sessions often include practical skills you can try between meetings, such as behavior experiments or mindful coping techniques.

Her approach draws on client-centered work that keeps the person’s own goals at the center. She also uses cognitive behavioral strategies to notice and shift unhelpful thinking patterns. DBT-informed skills appear when emotion regulation and distress tolerance are needed.

People come to her when they feel stuck after a life change, when relationships are tense, or when anxiety and low mood make daily tasks harder. She talks through problems in clear terms and helps set short, measurable steps to try. That includes communication practice, boundary work, and ways to manage panic or intrusive thoughts.

Susan aims to collaborate on practical plans rather than offering quick fixes. She encourages small experiments in thinking and behavior, then reviews what works. If deeper patterns from family of origin or long-standing shame come up, she uses psychodynamic ideas alongside other methods to understand those patterns.

How her approaches translate to online work

Client-centered therapy places the client's goals and perspective first. In practice this means sessions focus on what feels most pressing and the therapist reflects back what she hears to help clarify choices. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, involves identifying unhelpful thinking patterns and trying small behavior changes to test new ideas. It is commonly used for anxiety, depression, panic, and obsessive thoughts.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. Susan will discuss different methods and decide together which tools fit a person’s goals and daily life. That means adjusting techniques as needed and trying concrete skills before moving on to other options.

Confirm the exact session formats before booking since the biography does not list them. Online sessions can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule, allow for shorter check-ins when needed, and reduce travel time. They can also let someone use video for practice conversations or choose audio when bandwidth is limited. Talk with the therapist during the matching process to identify which session rhythm and format will best suit current needs and routines.