- Anxiety and stress
- Relationship work
- Practical coping
About Gretchen
Gretchen Raring is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than two decades of practice. She focuses on helping people manage anxiety, stress, relationship strains, low self-esteem, and life transitions. Gretchen blends practical tools with an empathetic, straightforward style to help people take steps that fit their daily lives.
She draws on a mix of approaches that include cognitive behavioral work, attachment ideas, and emotion-focused techniques. Sessions often combine talking through problems with hands-on strategies for coping, sleep, and managing difficult emotions. The emphasis is on small, useful changes a person can try between meetings.
Gretchen's background includes work in mental health, addiction services, homelessness supports, incarceration settings, and with veteran populations. That range shaped a flexible way of working that adapts to where someone is starting from. She aims to meet clients with acceptance and clear, practical guidance.
In conversation she prioritizes collaboration - working with each person to set goals and choose methods that fit. Her counseling style is warm but direct, helping people build skills for impulse control, communication, and handling grief or trauma. She pays attention to patterns from relationships and attachment while teaching tools to change unhelpful behaviors.
Gretchen practices in New Jersey and uses her LICSW and LCSW credentials to inform care rooted in experience. Sessions are conducted in English and she does not take international clients. To begin, a prospective client completes a short matching questionnaire and schedules according to availability.
How therapeutic approaches guide online work
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on clarifying what matters most to a person and taking committed steps toward those values while learning to sit with difficult thoughts. It can help with anxiety, avoidance, and life changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at the links between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and teaches concrete skills to change unhelpful patterns; it is often used for anxiety, depression, sleep, and coping skills. Attachment-Based Therapy pays attention to how early relationship patterns affect current connections and emotional responses, which can be useful for intimacy issues and relationship conflict.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Gretchen works collaboratively to figure out which methods fit a person's goals and preferences. Together they try techniques, check what helps, and adjust the plan as progress and needs change.
Confirm the therapist's current session options before booking, as formats are not specified here. Online sessions can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule, avoid travel time, and keep appointments during work or family breaks. Some formats are also better for shorter check-ins or for people who prefer not to use video. Licensed professionals and therapists can adapt exercises and homework for online meetings so people can continue building skills between sessions.
Areas of focus
Frequently asked questions
What concerns does she address?
Gretchen helps with stress, anxiety, depression, relationship and intimacy issues, grief, trauma, addictions, sleep problems, parenting strains, career concerns, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and more.
What is her approach in sessions?
Her style blends client-centered conversation with practical skills from cognitive behavioral and emotion-focused approaches. Sessions mix exploring feelings with concrete strategies to try between meetings.
How long has she practiced?
She brings 24 years of experience working across mental health, addiction, homelessness, incarceration, and veteran settings.
What credentials and location are listed?
She holds LICSW and LCSW credentials and practices in New Jersey.
Which languages are supported?
Sessions are offered in English.
Can international clients work together?
International clients are not currently accepted.
How are costs structured?
Cost varies with location and therapist availability; sessions use a subscription that can be canceled at any time.
How do I start sessions?
Click the Start Therapy button, complete a short matching questionnaire, and schedule based on the therapist's availability.