About Kristen
Kristen Buongiorno is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with 14 years of experience. She emphasizes practical, down-to-earth work that helps people manage stress, anxiety, depression, and ADHD. Kristen speaks plainly and aims to make sessions feel useful from the first meeting.
Clients can expect straightforward conversations that still feel warm and respectful. Kristen draws on approaches that link thoughts, feelings, and actions to help people change habits that get in the way of daily life.
Background and approach
She also uses mindfulness practices to support grounding and self-care between sessions. Her background includes supporting people coping with trauma, relationship problems, loss, addiction, career stress, and the stress that comes with caregiving and medical challenges. Kristen has experience with issues affecting veterans and first responders, and with sexual trauma and related recovery concerns.
She balances compassion with clear feedback when hard topics come up. Therapy with Kristen is collaborative. She invites clients to set goals and helps them break those goals into small, manageable steps.
Sessions can include skill-building, safety planning when needed, and practical strategies for coping and decision making. People who want direct, practical support will find a steady presence in Kristen. She encourages motivation and celebrates progress while helping clients develop tools to handle setbacks and life changes.
How Kristen blends practical methods with online care
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on understanding each person's experience and building a trusting working relationship. It helps people feel heard and guides goal setting based on their priorities.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts influence feelings and behavior and teaches concrete strategies to change unhelpful patterns. It is often used for anxiety, depression, ADHD-related challenges, and coping with life transitions.
Finding the right approach is part of the process. Kristen works collaboratively to choose methods that match a person's needs, goals, and preferences, and she adjusts techniques as progress is made.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video works well for deeper conversational work and practicing skills together. Phone sessions can be a simpler option when bandwidth is limited. Live chat or text messaging are useful for brief check-ins, homework support, or when someone prefers written communication. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life and to continue work between appointments.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Anger management
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Eating disorders
- Family conflicts
- First responder issues
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 14 years
- Licensed
- New Jersey
- Languages
- English
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