Dianne Smith, LMFT

Dianne Smith is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) with 43 years of clinical experience. She brings a practical, solution-focused mindset to her work and pairs a direct style with warmth and empathy so clients feel understood while making progress. LMFT stands for Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a credential that reflects specialized training in relationships, family dynamics, and individual mental health.

She values education and skill development, believing that learning concrete tools can help people manage the bumps that arise in life. Her approach is collaborative - she assesses each person’s beliefs, hopes, and goals and tailors interventions to what will be most helpful for them. She is well trained in trauma-informed treatment, cognitive behavioral therapy, family systems strategies, and dialectical behavior therapy, drawing from these methods to offer both practical skills and deeper understanding.

Dianne focuses on helping clients who are coping with stress, anxiety, family and relationship challenges, trauma and abuse, parenting concerns, depression, addictions, grief, anger, self-esteem issues, and life transitions. She aims to partner with clients to move past feeling stuck and to support measurable forward movement on the journey called life.

Therapeutic Approaches and Online Care

Dianne regularly uses cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and she is trained in trauma-focused approaches. CBT helps clients identify and change unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns - it is often used for anxiety, depression, stress, and coping challenges. DBT emphasizes skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness, which can be especially helpful for overwhelming emotions and self-harm behaviors. Trauma-focused therapy addresses the impact of traumatic experiences and supports recovery through targeted strategies that build safety and gradual processing.

Choosing the right approach is part of the therapeutic process. Dianne works collaboratively with each person to determine which methods fit their needs, goals, and preferences, and she adjusts techniques as progress is made.

Online therapy sessions - whether by video call, phone, live chat, or text messaging - offer flexibility that can make consistent care easier to attend amid busy schedules or life transitions. These options help people access licensed professionals from different locations and maintain continuity of care while using approaches like CBT, DBT, and trauma-focused work in ways that fit their daily lives.