Sara Van Slyke, LMHC

Sara Van Slyke is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) with 13 years of clinical experience. She focuses on clear, practical work aimed at reducing stress and anxiety and improving day-to-day functioning. Her approach is straightforward and focused on what helps people feel better in their lives.

Sara emphasizes that clients know their own stories and brings a respectful, listening stance to each session. She uses cognitive behavioral ideas to help identify unhelpful thoughts and try new behaviors. She also draws on client-centered methods to make sessions collaborative and paced to each person.

In sessions she may introduce skills from dialectical behavior therapy to manage strong emotions and from mindfulness to build moment-to-moment calm. She helps people tackle issues such as depression, addictions, low self-esteem, grief, and major life changes. She also supports work on relationship strains, parenting concerns, eating issues, anger, career transitions, bipolar disorder, and ADHD.

Sara works with plain language and concrete steps so parents and busy adults can use tools between sessions. She encourages small experiments that show whether a new strategy helps. Progress is tracked in simple ways that make it easier to see change.

People who want a practical, respectful therapist who listens and offers concrete tools may find this approach useful. She is based in Washington and brings a calm, steady style to the work.

How these approaches work in online sessions

Sara commonly uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people notice thought patterns and test small behavior changes. CBT gives concrete steps to reduce anxiety, depression, and unhelpful habits. She also uses client-centered methods that focus on listening, reflecting, and shaping the work around each person's priorities. That style helps people feel heard and involved in planning next steps.

She may bring in dialectical behavior therapy skills when strong emotions or impulsive behaviors are present. DBT-based skills teach practical ways to tolerate distress, regulate emotions, and improve interpersonal effectiveness. Together these approaches give a mix of hands-on tools and supportive listening, and she will work with each person to decide what fits best.

Online therapy with video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging makes it easier to fit sessions into busy days. Video is useful for a fuller conversation and skills practice, phone calls can be simpler when bandwidth is limited, and chat or text can work for short check-ins and between-session support. These options provide flexibility so people can choose what works for their schedule and energy level.