About Saila
Saila Akhtar is a licensed mental health counselor who focuses on helping people manage anxiety, stress, phobias, and life changes. She speaks plainly and offers a calm, respectful space where clients can name what feels hard and try small, practical steps to feel steadier. With eight years as an LMHC, she draws on several therapy styles to meet real needs.
Sessions are conversational and interactive. She listens first, then works with each person to set clear, achievable goals.
Background and approach
Saila commonly helps people dealing with depression, bipolar concerns, addictions, and trauma. She also supports those facing relationship strains, parenting stress, grief, low self-esteem, and career transitions. Issues such as ADHD, eating concerns, and substance use are also part of her practice focus.
Her approach blends client-centered work with cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavior ideas. That means she emphasizes understanding each person’s experience, testing practical skills, and building emotion regulation strategies. She adjusts methods to match what a person needs right now.
People can expect straightforward conversations about coping tools, thought patterns, and behavior changes. Sessions aim to be collaborative, focused on what a person wants to change and how to get there in small steps. Saila practices in Florida as an LMHC and offers remote session formats including video calls, phone, live chat, and text-based messaging for people who prefer online work.
How her approaches work in online sessions
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and reflecting what matters most to the client. In online sessions this means the therapist follows the person's lead and helps clarify goals and priorities. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and try new behaviors. Online CBT often includes specific exercises and homework that can be reviewed in the next session. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, DBT, teaches emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal skills. Those skills can be practiced in session and reinforced between meetings using chat or text.Finding the best approach is part of the work together. The therapist will collaborate to choose methods that match the client's needs, goals, and preferences. That may mean starting with problem-focused CBT tools and adding client-centered or DBT techniques as needed.
Online formats offer practical flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or for quick check-ins. Live chat and text-based messaging work well for brief updates, notes between sessions, or when someone prefers typing to speaking. These options make therapy more adaptable to work schedules, caregiving duties, and travel needs while keeping the focus on clear goals and skill-building.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 8 years
- Licensed
- New York, Florida
- Languages
- English
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