Heather Parenti, LCSW

Heather Parenti is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 27 years of experience. She helps people who are feeling overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, depression, relationship struggles, eating concerns, addiction, grief, trauma, and life transitions. Her style aims to help clients feel more content and more capable of choosing changes that matter. Heather believes answers often come from within and that small shifts in thought and habit add up. She draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as a central framework and blends mindfulness and Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills to manage strong emotions. She also uses attachment-informed ideas and relationship-focused tools when relationship issues are central. Heather trained at California State University, Long Beach and has practiced in multiple settings since 2004, including private practice, medical and mental health settings, and schools. She moved to Connecticut in 2017 and maintains licensure in California and Connecticut as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker - LCSW. Her sessions tend to be practical and grounded. People work on identifying unhelpful thought patterns, changing daily habits, and practicing simple skills like mindfulness and emotion regulation. She encourages creative outlets such as writing, drawing, and movement when they support healing. Clients can expect a collaborative approach that matches methods to their goals. Heather focuses on helping people build coping strategies for sleeping, parenting, intimacy, self-esteem, chronic illness, and other everyday challenges. Her aim is steady progress toward living a more balanced life.

How Heather's approaches translate to online work

Attachment-informed work focuses on how early patterns affect current relationships and feelings of safety. In practice that means talking through recurring relationship reactions and trying new interaction habits to improve connection and closeness. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at the link between thoughts, feelings, and actions. Online sessions often include noticing unhelpful thoughts, testing them, and practicing small behavior changes between meetings to build healthier routines. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills add practical tools for handling intense emotions, tolerating distress, and improving interpersonal effectiveness. These skills are useful when anxiety, anger, or strong urges interfere with daily life. Finding the right approach is part of the work. Heather will collaborate with clients to identify which methods fit their goals and preferences and adjust the plan as progress is made. That collaborative process helps tailor techniques to daily life needs. Practically, online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy schedule and reduce travel time. The original biography does not list specific session formats, so confirm current options before booking. Online meetings can support regular check-ins, skill practice, and homework review, making it possible to apply changes between sessions and build new habits over time.