About Shiho
Shiho Murakami helps people who are struggling with family tension, parenting stress, self-esteem worries, trauma, or LGBT-related concerns. She greets clients with straightforward care and aims to make first steps feel achievable. Shiho uses everyday language and clear goals so conversations stay practical and focused.
Shiho is a licensed independent clinical social worker, LICSW, and also holds MD and LCSW-C credentials. She practices in Maryland and brings six years of professional experience to sessions.
How Shiho works
Her approach centers on respect, sensitivity, and supporting each person’s pace. In sessions she adapts conversation and plans to what the person needs right now. This might mean looking at patterns in relationships, learning skills to manage intense emotions, or changing small habits that influence mood.
She draws on approaches like cognitive behavioral strategies and attachment-focused work to make therapy concrete and useful. Shiho also addresses related concerns such as abandonment, adoption and foster care issues, blended family dynamics, caregiver stress, and substance or eating-related problems. She pays attention to the story behind behaviors and helps people find practical steps forward.
Sessions are offered in English and Japanese. Her style is collaborative and calm, aimed at helping people feel more in control and less overwhelmed. Shiho encourages realistic change and supports clients as they try out new ways of coping.
Shiho lists 10 ways of working on the entry:
What Shiho works with
The areas below are the ones Shiho selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- LGBT
- Family conflicts
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Registers | LICSW, MD, LCSW-C |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 6 |
| Languages | English, Japanese |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Maryland |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
How these approaches work in online sessions
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people clarify what matters to them and take small, values-guided steps even when emotions are hard. It is useful for low self-esteem, anxiety about parenting, and navigating identity concerns. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships shape current patterns and helps people change how they relate to others and to themselves. This can be helpful for blended family issues, attachment challenges, and recovery from abandonment or adoption-related wounds.Choosing an approach is collaborative. The therapist and client talk about goals, try different strategies, and adjust as needed. Shiho will work with each person to find methods that suit their needs, combining approaches when that makes sense.
Online sessions offer flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is good for in-depth conversation and visual cues, phone works when bandwidth is limited, chat is useful for quick check-ins, and messaging lets clients reflect between sessions. These options help people fit therapy into busy lives and maintain continuity when schedules or locations change.
Start online instead of waiting
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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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