Shari Peterson, LICSW

Shari Peterson is a licensed independent clinical social worker with 20 years in the mental health field. She practices in Minnesota and brings long experience from community mental health, school settings, and outpatient treatment. Shari has provided individual therapy for several years and works with a broad range of concerns.

Shari focuses on helping people manage depression, anxiety, and stress. She also supports people facing substance use struggles, trauma and abuse, domestic violence, and ADHD. Relationship strain, parenting stress, sleep or eating difficulties, and self-esteem challenges are part of her everyday work.

Her style is warm, authentic, and strengths-based. Sessions emphasize the relationship between client and clinician and build on each person’s resources. Shari describes her approach as person-centered and relational, with attention to how life history and current patterns affect daily functioning.

She uses a mix of methods to fit each person’s needs. This can include cognitive-behavioral strategies for managing thoughts and behaviors, narrative techniques to reframe personal stories, and mindfulness practices to increase present-moment awareness. Motivational interviewing is used when people want help making lasting change.

People who come to Shari can expect a collaborative process. She aims to listen closely, help set clear goals, and adapt methods as progress is made. Her work often addresses overlapping issues like chronic pain, attachment concerns, and co-occurring substance use or mood symptoms.

Shari brings practical focus to sessions while honoring each person’s experience. She seeks to create a steady space for people to talk through problems and build everyday coping skills.

How therapeutic approaches translate to online work

Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening, acceptance, and building a trusting relationship so people can name their goals and move at their own pace. This approach helps with emotion-focused problems like grief, low self-esteem, or relationship stress. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors link together and teaches practical skills to change unhelpful patterns; it is often used for anxiety, depression, and sleep or eating difficulties. Mindfulness Therapy teaches attention and grounding practices to reduce reactivity and increase awareness, which can be useful for stress, trauma-related symptoms, and chronic pain.

Finding the right combination of approaches is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to choose methods that match their goals, needs, and preferences. Over time the plan may shift based on what proves most helpful in sessions.

The practical benefits of online therapy can include easier scheduling and fitting sessions into a busy life. Online work may reduce travel time and make it simpler to have a shorter check-in when needed. The biography does not list specific session formats, so confirm current options before booking to know what formats are available. Licensed professionals can adapt CBT tools, mindfulness exercises, and person-centered conversations to remote sessions while focusing on real-life application between meetings.