About Stefanie
Stefanie Fernandez is a licensed clinical social worker with more than 25 years of experience. She helps adults navigate anxiety, depression, grief, relationship strain, and other emotional challenges. Her style is straightforward and collaborative, focusing on goals that matter to each person.
Stefanie offers individual therapy as her primary format. She encourages clients to set clear priorities and to move at a pace that feels manageable. Mindfulness and increased self-awareness are regular parts of sessions to help people notice patterns and make small changes.
Background and approach
Her practice draws on several approaches and choices are guided by what each person needs. Cognitive strategies are used to address unhelpful thinking. Emotion-focused techniques help people identify and process stuck feelings.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy ideas support clients in clarifying values and taking committed steps toward them. Over the years Stefanie has worked with people facing trauma, chronic health challenges, caregiving stress, and complicated family-of-origin patterns. She also brings experience supervising early-career social workers and graduate students in clinical settings.
That background informs a practical, down-to-earth way of teaching skills during sessions. Sessions are offered through video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging. Stefanie is based in New York and conducts therapy in English.
The therapy process starts with identifying a few clear goals and then testing small changes to see what helps most.
Therapeutic approaches suited to online work
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people clarify what matters most to them and take small, value-driven steps despite difficult thoughts or feelings. It can be helpful for anxiety, depression, and life transitions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thought patterns and testing new behaviors to reduce distress and improve daily functioning. It often helps with anxiety, low mood, and coping skills. Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) helps people notice and name emotions so they can respond to them more effectively, which can ease relationship stress and unresolved grief.Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to choose or combine methods based on needs, goals, and what feels comfortable. Sessions typically begin with a few priorities and then try practical steps to see what helps.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is useful for a deeper, face-to-face conversation; phone sessions can fit a short break or require less bandwidth. Live chat and text messaging allow quick check-ins, written reflections, or ongoing support between longer meetings. These options make therapy more flexible and easier to fit into a busy life.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Traumatic brain injury
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- New York
- Languages
- English
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