About Paula
Paula Patterson is a licensed clinical social worker who offers steady, experienced support for people facing stress, anxiety, depression, grief, addiction, and trauma. She has twenty years of practice and focuses on helping clients cope with life changes and regain a sense of balance.
She works with a wide range of concerns including relationship and intimacy issues, parenting strain, anger, low self-esteem, and compassion fatigue. Paula also helps people dealing with obsessive-compulsive patterns, self-harm challenges, sexual assault and abuse, bipolar disorder, and seasonal affective shifts.
How Paula works
Her work draws on practical, evidence-based approaches. Paula uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help people choose actions that match their values, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to change unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy for emotion regulation and distress tolerance. Attachment-informed and client-centered techniques shape how she builds trust and responds to each person.
Sessions are conversational and down-to-earth. Paula aims to break concerns into manageable steps and teach coping skills that fit daily life. She focuses on what a person wants to accomplish and helps build a plan to get there.
Paula practices in North Carolina as an LCSW - licensed clinical social worker. Sessions are offered in English and delivered using video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging. New clients begin by completing a short matching questionnaire and scheduling a session.
Paula lists 10 ways of working on the entry:
What Paula works with
The areas below are the ones Paula 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
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Grief
- Intimacy-related issues
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Trauma and abuse
Training and background
| Register | LCSW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 20 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | North Carolina |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Approaches that translate well to online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people clarify what matters to them and take small steps toward those values even when feelings are hard. It works well for anxiety, depression, and life transitions by focusing on action rather than getting stuck in worry.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is about spotting unhelpful thoughts and testing them through deliberate behavior changes. It is useful for managing anxiety, obsessive thinking, mood shifts, and some symptoms of SAD by teaching hands-on skills to change patterns.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy offers concrete tools for managing intense emotions, improving interpersonal effectiveness, and tolerating distress. Those skills can be helpful when someone struggles with strong mood swings, self-harm urges, or relationship reactivity.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. Paula will collaborate with each person to pick methods that match their goals, needs, and preferences and adjust techniques as progress unfolds.
Online sessions are offered by licensed professionals through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy more flexible. Video works well for deeper conversation and skill practice, phone calls suit lower bandwidth or hands-free check-ins, and chat or messaging can be used for brief check-ins or between-session coaching. These options help people fit therapy into busy lives and keep continuity when schedules 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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