About Nicholas
Nicholas Smith welcomes people who feel stuck, unmotivated, overwhelmed, or ready to make a meaningful change. He focuses on helping clients connect daily choices with their values and goals while building practical skills to manage emotions and shift unhelpful thought patterns.
Background and approach
Nicholas draws attention to how thoughts arise and offers tools to question and reframe them in ways that support growth. Over a 13-year career, Nicholas has worked in diverse clinical settings including a student counseling center, a hospital inpatient psychiatric unit, independent practice, and a drug and alcohol addiction treatment program.
Those experiences inform his flexible use of therapeutic methods so each plan is tailored to the individual. He approaches care with a blend of psychological and philosophical curiosity and aims to combine compassionate support with clinical insight.
Clients can expect a collaborative process that adapts techniques to fit their needs, whether addressing stress, anxiety, depression, addictions, relationship or intimacy-related concerns, ADHD, grief, career questions, or a range of other challenges. Nicholas is licensed in Illinois as an LCPC and offers hope for people seeking clearer direction and more effective ways to manage life’s demands.
Therapeutic Approaches and Remote Care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT encourages clients to clarify their values and take committed action toward them while learning to accept difficult thoughts and feelings rather than avoiding them; it is often helpful for stress, life transitions, and struggles with motivation. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT focuses on identifying and testing unhelpful thought patterns and building practical behavioral skills to reduce anxiety and depression symptoms and improve daily functioning. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT offers concrete skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness, which can be valuable for intense emotions, anger, and relationship challenges).Choosing the right therapeutic approach is part of the collaborative work. Nicholas will explore goals, preferences, and the specific challenges a client brings to determine which methods or combination of methods fit best, and he adapts techniques as progress unfolds.
Online therapy with this clinician is offered through multiple remote formats including video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. These options provide flexibility for scheduling, allow continued work during life changes, and make it easier to access consistent support from licensed professionals without needing to travel to an office.
Frequently asked questions
What issues does Nicholas commonly address?
What therapeutic style can I expect in sessions?
How long has he been practicing?
What are his credentials and where is he licensed?
Does he offer services in other languages or to international clients?
Which session formats are available for remote therapy?
How are fees and payment handled?
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Career difficulties
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Control issues
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Intimacy-related issues
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Parenting issues
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 13 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English