Susan Samek , LPC

Susan Samek is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and a licensed creative arts therapist with 30 years of experience helping people navigate difficult life moments. She combines talk-based therapy with creative arts techniques to help clients identify needs, set achievable goals, and foster meaningful growth. These complementary approaches give people options for how they explore thoughts, feelings, and patterns that influence daily life.

Known for a calm, gentle manner, she offers a comfortable space for self-discovery where thoughtful engagement, empathy, and unconditional positive regard guide the work. Her style emphasizes listening and validation so clients feel heard while moving toward change when it is needed. The focus is practical - understanding the roots of habits, patterns, and trauma so clients can build awareness and make intentional choices.

Susan traces her interest in helping others to a lifelong curiosity about how experience and environment shape relationships and sense of self. Art served as a personal tool for reflection and processing, and she brings that experience into therapy to support expression when words alone are not enough. She works with people facing stress, anxiety, addictions, grief, low self-esteem, depression, relationship and family concerns, trauma and abuse, intimacy challenges, parenting issues, and coping with life changes.

Throughout her work she emphasizes acceptance, forgiveness, and gradual resilience, helping clients cultivate inner resources to manage life’s ups and downs and move toward the futures they want.

Therapeutic approaches and online care

Susan integrates creative arts therapy with talk-based counseling to give clients different ways to explore experiences and emotions. Creative arts therapy uses drawing, painting, or other expressive activities as a vehicle for self-reflection and processing, which can be especially helpful when feelings are hard to put into words. Talk-based therapy focuses on identifying patterns, uncovering the roots of habits or trauma, and developing practical strategies to manage symptoms like anxiety, grief, or relationship strain.

She also draws on trauma-informed principles that prioritize pacing, safety, and understanding how past experiences shape present reactions. Finding the right approach is part of the therapeutic process - Susan collaborates with each person to determine whether art integration, conversational work, or a blend of both best fits their needs, goals, and preferences.

Online therapy with Susan is offered through several flexible modalities including video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life, allow participation from home, and support steady progress even when schedules or circumstances change. Licensed professionals can adapt techniques to work effectively across these formats while keeping the focus on the client’s goals.