About Michele
Michele McShea is a licensed clinical social worker with 19 years of practice in Illinois. She focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, relationship struggles, and issues tied to identity and intimacy. Michele takes a practical, steady approach so people can feel safer taking small steps forward.
She combines talk and problem-solving to build both insight and coping skills. Sessions often include clear, hands-on strategies alongside space to understand patterns that keep problems repeating.
How Michele works
Michele uses methods drawn from cognitive behavioral approaches, psychodynamic work, existential ideas, hypnotherapy, and solution-focused techniques depending on what a person needs. Michele supports people dealing with grief, addictions, family-of-origin wounds, body image and codependency. She also helps with commitment concerns, communication problems, infidelity, and the emotional fallout of divorce and separation.
Her practice addresses abandonment, emptiness, guilt and shame, and HIV / AIDS related issues when they come up in someone’s life. Her goal is to help clients increase functioning while they heal. That might mean learning new ways to reduce anxiety, practicing different responses in relationships, or finding routines that restore energy and motivation.
Michele aims for steady progress rather than quick fixes. People work at a pace that fits their life and goals. Michele welcomes conversations about practical needs and personal values, and she helps people translate insights into everyday change.
Michele lists 5 ways of working on the entry:
What Michele works with
The areas below are the ones Michele selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- LGBT
- Relationship issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Body image
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
Training and background
| Register | LCSW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 19 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Illinois |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Approaches that guide online sessions
CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy, helps people notice and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors that keep anxiety and low mood in place. It is practical and often focuses on specific skills like breathing, activity scheduling, and testing out new responses to fear or worry.Existential therapy looks at life questions and meaning. It helps people facing big changes, feelings of emptiness, or struggles with identity to name what matters and make choices that fit their values.
Michele treats finding the right approach as a team effort. She will discuss how different methods might fit a person’s goals and preferences, and then try options together. This lets the therapist and client adjust what they do based on what helps most.
Online therapy provides flexible ways to meet. Video calls are useful for face-to-face conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions work when bandwidth is limited or a quicker check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging let people share thoughts between sessions or keep therapy going when schedules are tight. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life while still working on meaningful change.
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Common questions
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A practical next step
Write down two things you would want to be different in six months. That is the most useful thing to bring to a first session, whoever it is with. If you would rather start now than keep reading, online sessions are the quickest route.
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