About Vicki
Vicki Alexander Hess is a licensed clinical social worker who helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship or identity concerns. She speaks plainly, listens without judgment, and works with each person to set clear, doable goals for therapy. She draws on practical tools from cognitive behavioral therapy to address unhelpful thinking and patterns.
Mindfulness techniques are used to increase calm and reduce reactivity. Motivational interviewing helps people find their own reasons to change, and solution-focused steps create short-term plans that build momentum.
How Vicki works
Vicki has five years of professional experience and practices in California. She adapts sessions to the needs of each person, balancing skills practice with open conversation. Her LCSW credential means she completed graduate-level social work training and state licensure.
Sessions often include real-life practice tasks to try between meetings. She pays attention to life context, including work stress, caregiving burdens, and identity-related struggles. Therapy can address sleep problems, grief, substance concerns, and coping with big life changes.
Vicki aims for clear, measurable progress while keeping an empathetic tone. People who want practical strategies and steady support may find this approach helpful. To begin, she asks clients to describe current priorities so together they can choose the next steps.
Vicki lists 5 ways of working on the entry:
What Vicki works with
The areas below are the ones Vicki selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Training and background
| Register | LCSW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 5 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | California |
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 sessions
Vicki commonly uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help identify and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors; this approach is useful for anxiety, depression, and sleep difficulties. She also uses mindfulness therapy to teach grounding and breathing techniques that reduce reactivity and improve focus. Motivational interviewing is part of her work when clients want support finding their own reasons to make changes and build motivation.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will discuss goals, try techniques, and adjust the plan based on what helps most. Clients and the therapist decide together which tools to emphasize as progress unfolds.
Online formats available include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and skills demonstration. Phone sessions can fit into tight schedules or require less bandwidth. Live chat and messaging support brief check-ins, homework review, and ongoing encouragement between meetings.
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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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