About Michelle
Michelle Lakefield is a licensed professional counselor in New Jersey with 20 years of experience. She focuses on helping people who feel overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, depression, grief, or big life changes. Michelle aims to create a calm space where clients can speak honestly and feel heard.
Her sessions start by listening to what matters most to the person sitting across from her. She uses practical tools from cognitive behavioral therapy to identify unhelpful thoughts and try new behaviors.
How Michelle works
Solution-focused methods help set small, concrete goals so progress can be measured and celebrated. Michelle also draws on client-centered principles, which means she follows the client’s pace and priorities. Internal Family Systems is part of her work when people want to understand different parts of themselves and how they affect choices and relationships.
She explains approaches in plain language and helps people pick what might work best. Many clients come for relationship strain, parenting stress, or to cope with trauma and abuse. Michelle supports people dealing with ADHD, bipolar mood concerns, eating issues, and compassion fatigue.
She also addresses blended family challenges, communication problems, and forgiveness work. Sessions can focus on immediate relief or on longer-term change depending on a person’s goals. Michelle emphasizes steady, realistic steps and practical skills that fit everyday life.
Michelle lists 4 ways of working on the entry:
What Michelle works with
The areas below are the ones Michelle selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LPC |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 20 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | New Jersey |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
How Michelle’s approaches work online
Client-centered therapy focuses on the person’s experience and priorities. Online sessions let Michelle listen closely, reflect what she hears, and follow the client’s pace so goals come from the client rather than a script. This approach helps with stress, grief, relationship concerns, and self-esteem issues.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions connect. In virtual sessions she teaches simple exercises to spot unhelpful thinking and test new behaviors. CBT is often used for anxiety, depression, anger, and coping with life changes.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. Michelle will collaborate with each person to decide whether client-centered conversations, CBT exercises, or short solution-focused steps fit best. That decision is guided by the client’s goals, daily routines, and what feels doable.
Online therapy offers practical flexibility. Video calls are good for deeper conversations and visual cues. Phone sessions work when bandwidth is limited or a quieter check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging suit brief updates, emotion tracking, or people who prefer typing. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy lives and to keep momentum between sessions.
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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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