About Stephanie
Stephanie Sarafinas is a licensed professional counselor who helps people during hard life moments. She focuses on stress, anxiety, depression, and career or parenting changes. Her style is direct and compassionate and she aims to make sessions practical and useful.
With 25 years of experience, Stephanie uses approaches that teach skills people can use between meetings. She draws on cognitive behavioral methods to identify unhelpful thoughts and DBT ideas to build emotional regulation and distress tolerance.
Background and approach
Mindfulness and solution-focused techniques are part of her toolbox to help people notice patterns and set small, achievable goals. Clients often come for help with grief, trauma, sleeping problems, or trouble with attention and focus. She also supports people coping with chronic pain, caregiver stress, and the emotional fallout of major life changes.
Conversations may address guilt, shame, isolation, or feeling stuck about life purpose. Sessions emphasize collaboration and clear steps. Stephanie listens for what matters most, then helps craft a plan that fits daily life.
Work can include skill practice, short-term coaching, and tracking progress over time. Her practice is grounded in practical techniques rather than jargon. People leave sessions with concrete tools they can try right away, and with a clearer sense of next steps for healing and change.
Common approaches used online and how they help
Stephanie frequently uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people notice unhelpful thoughts and try different, more helpful ways of thinking and acting. CBT is often useful for anxiety, depression, sleeping problems, and work stress.She also uses dialectical behavior therapy ideas to teach emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal skills that reduce reactivity and improve communication. DBT strategies can be helpful for strong mood swings, anger, and relationship stress.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. Stephanie will talk with each person about goals and preferences, then try methods that fit those needs. The plan can change as progress is made and priorities shift.
If you are considering online therapy, confirm the session options before booking so you know what formats are offered. Online work can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule, allow shorter check-ins when needed, and reduce travel time. Many people find that skill practice, homework, and focused problem-solving translate well to remote sessions when paired with clear goals and follow-up.
Questions people ask
What kinds of concerns does she support?
How would you describe her therapy style?
What experience does she bring to sessions?
What credential and region should I know about?
Which languages are supported for sessions?
Can international clients work with her?
How does payment and cost work?
What are the first steps to begin therapy?
What this counselor works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Self esteem
- Career difficulties
Also listed
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- Pennsylvania
- Languages
- English