About Valerie
Valerie Rutherford is a Licensed Independent Social Worker (LISW) in Ohio with 18 years of experience. She focuses on practical help for everyday problems and meets people where they are. Valerie aims to make reaching out feel straightforward and doable for busy parents and adults.
Her work centers on stress, anxiety, depression, and parenting challenges. She also helps with relationship and intimacy issues, grief, trauma and abuse, addiction concerns, and self-esteem struggles.
How Valerie works
Valerie pays attention to how life transitions and caregiving pressures affect day-to-day coping. Valerie uses a client-centered style that puts the person's goals first. She draws from approaches like acceptance and commitment, cognitive behavioral, dialectical behavior, and mindfulness therapies.
Sessions mix conversation, skills practice, and steps you can try between meetings. In practical terms, she addresses things such as body image, blended family stress, abandonment and adoption concerns, communication problems, codependency, and eating-related issues. She also supports people navigating divorce, domestic violence aftermath, and career-related stress.
Work with her tends to be collaborative and goal-oriented. She helps create clear plans for handling emotions, reducing conflict, or building routines. The aim is to leave each session with small, doable actions that add up over time.
Valerie lists 8 ways of working on the entry:
What Valerie works with
The areas below are the ones Valerie selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Parenting issues
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LISW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 18 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Ohio |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Therapeutic approaches for online work
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and choose actions that match their values. It can be useful for anxiety, depression, and coping with life changes by teaching practical ways to stay engaged with what matters.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on spotting thought and behavior patterns that keep problems going and testing new ways of thinking and acting. It often helps with anxiety, mood issues, and managing stress through concrete exercises and homework.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) teaches emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and clearer communication skills. It can be helpful for strong emotions, relationship conflict, and improving day-to-day coping.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. Valerie will talk with each person about their goals, struggles, and preferences and together decide which methods to try. That collaborative process helps shape sessions so they feel relevant and practical.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video is useful for face-to-face conversation and skills practice. Phone can suit shorter check-ins or when bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text let people check in between sessions or use written communication when that feels easier. These options make scheduling more flexible and fit therapy into busy lives.
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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