Karen Shaughness, LCSW

Karen Shaughness is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) based in New York with 38 years of experience. She practices a client-centered approach that focuses on thoughts and everyday habits to help people manage stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship concerns. Her manner is warm and direct, aiming to make beginning therapy feel manageable for worried parents and busy adults.

She uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, mindfulness techniques, and motivational interviewing to address everyday patterns that keep problems going. Sessions often look at how thoughts, routines, and small choices affect mood, sleep, and relationships. Karen also brings experience working with addictions and family dynamics developed over many years in a hospital setting.

Clients can expect practical tools alongside space to talk through difficult feelings. Karen emphasizes simple, achievable steps that fit into daily life rather than complex interventions. She also draws on mindfulness to reduce reactivity and increase calm in stressful moments.

Her background includes long-term clinical work on Long Island and hospital practice in New York. That experience informs her approach to grief, trauma and abuse, compassion fatigue, and first responder issues. Outside of work she finds restoration near water, hiking with her Golden Retriever, gardening, and attending concerts.

If you want to start, the typical process is to use the site to request care and complete a short matching questionnaire. Scheduling follows the platform's booking flow and the therapist's availability.

How therapeutic approaches shape online care

Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and understanding each person where they are. It emphasizes empathy, respect, and working at a pace the client finds comfortable, which helps people who are hesitant to start therapy or need a gentle approach.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at thoughts and everyday habits that keep problems going. It teaches straightforward skills for changing unhelpful thinking and routines, which can help with anxiety, mood, sleep, and repetitive patterns like compulsions or avoidance.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to match methods to goals and preferences. That means trying ideas, checking what helps, and adjusting the plan together over time.

Online therapy can make it easier to fit care into a busy life. Many people find remote sessions remove travel time and make scheduling around work or parenting simpler. If you need shorter check-ins, have limited bandwidth for video, or prefer not to be on camera sometimes, those practical needs can be discussed when arranging care. Confirm the specific session formats offered before booking so you know what options will be scheduled.