About Valerie
Valerie Engel is a licensed counselor who focuses on helping people manage stressful life changes and difficult emotions. She listens closely and works with clients to build practical tools for sleeping better, reducing anxiety, and handling relationship struggles. Valerie aims to help people notice strengths they already have and use them to move forward.
She uses clear, goal-focused work to change unhelpful thinking and to teach new coping skills. That often looks like spotting patterns in thoughts and behaviors, then practicing small steps to shift them.
Background and approach
Sessions include skill building, communication coaching, and planning for real-life situations. Valerie began in addiction and recovery counseling in 2007 and expanded into broader mental health therapy in 2017. Over 18 years she has helped people with depression, trauma and abuse, codependency, and grief.
Her background includes work with co-occurring disorders and stress-related concerns like compassion fatigue. Her clinical approaches include Client-Centered Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). She also uses mindfulness and stress reduction techniques rooted in HeartMath for managing strong emotions and regaining a sense of control.
Valerie holds LPC and LMHC credentials and practices from Washington. She offers a straightforward, respectful style that aims to make change feel doable. Many clients come to her for help with addictions, sleep problems, self-esteem, and navigating major life transitions.
How Valerie Uses Client-Centered and CBT Online
Valerie uses Client-Centered Therapy to create a supportive, nonjudgmental space where people can talk through what feels hardest. This approach focuses on listening deeply, reflecting what a person says, and helping them identify their own solutions and strengths.She pairs that with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to address patterns of negative thinking and behavior. CBT involves spotting thought and behavior cycles, trying out small experiments, and building practical skills to improve sleep, reduce anxiety, or manage cravings and mood shifts.
Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work. Valerie treats the choice of methods as collaborative and will adjust techniques based on a person's goals, needs, and comfort. She discusses options and helps set clear, achievable steps so therapy feels focused and useful.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to match different schedules and preferences. Video is useful for full conversations and skill practice, phone can be easier when bandwidth is limited, and messaging or live chat can fit shorter check-ins or daily skill work. These formats make it easier to keep regular appointments and to practice new strategies between sessions.
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Addictions
- Sleeping disorders
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Avoidant personality
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 18 years
- Licensed
- Colorado, Washington
- Languages
- English
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