About Michelle
Michelle Laughlin is a licensed clinical social worker practicing in California. She helps people who are struggling with stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, low self-esteem, and the everyday challenges of major life changes. She also supports people reporting difficulty with focus and attention, including concerns related to ADHD.
She uses a straightforward, respectful style in sessions. Conversations are shaped to each person's needs and goals, with the therapist listening first and asking practical questions.
Background and approach
Sessions tend to focus on skills that people can try between meetings and small changes that add up over time. Her approach draws on several methods, including attachment-based work to understand relationship patterns and cognitive behavioral techniques to shift thinking and behavior. Dialectical behavior strategies and solution-focused steps are used when people need concrete tools for emotion regulation and problem solving.
Michelle has four years of professional experience as an LCSW in California. That background includes supporting people through traumatic experiences and helping them rebuild confidence and daily routines. She aims to create an atmosphere of respect and compassion in every session.
Beginning work involves identifying a few clear goals and choosing approachable steps toward them. The plan is adjusted as progress is made, so the path forward stays practical and relevant to each person’s life.
How Michelle’s approaches translate to online care
Attachment-based work looks at how early and current relationships shape how people react and connect. Online sessions can explore these patterns to help people shift repeated responses and build more supportive ways of relating. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, focuses on the link between thoughts, feelings, and actions; clients learn to spot unhelpful thoughts and try new behaviors that change how they feel. Solution-focused therapy zeroes in on small, realistic steps that move someone toward their goals and is useful when people want quick, practical progress.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will ask about your goals, daily routines, and what has or hasn't helped before. Together you decide which methods to try and adjust the plan over time based on what feels most useful.
Online work is offered by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to make scheduling easier. Video calls are good for face-to-face conversation and visual cues, phone sessions can fit a short break from work, and chat or messaging are helpful for quick check-ins or when typing feels easier than speaking. These options let people fit therapy into busy lives and try different formats to see what works best.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Blended family issues
- Co-morbidity
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Dissociation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 4 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English
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