About Shanua
Shanua Smith is a licensed professional counselor with a focus on helping people facing stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, and ADHD. She practices in South Dakota and brings 19 years of clinical experience to sessions. Shanua aims to make therapy straightforward and practical for people feeling overwhelmed by life changes or intense emotions.
She uses an approachable, person-centered style that puts the client's goals first. Sessions often begin with listening and clarifying what matters most.
Background and approach
From there she and the client pick strategies that fit daily life, whether that means changing thought patterns, building coping skills, or processing past hurts. Shanua draws on cognitive behavioral techniques to help people identify unhelpful thinking and try different behaviors. She also uses trauma-focused methods and EMDR to address memories and symptoms that keep people stuck.
Motivational interviewing techniques help when someone wants to make real changes but feels stuck or unsure how to start. Her work emphasizes simple, usable tools people can take into their routines. That might look like short behavioral experiments, communication practice, or steady pacing through painful memories.
Shanua also helps people handle practical issues such as sleep, eating, work stress, and relationship friction. People who choose her often want a calm, steady presence and clear steps to move forward. She tailors each plan to what a person needs right now, adjusting methods as progress is made.
Sessions are offered by video, phone, live chat, or text messaging.
Therapeutic approaches you can use online
Shanua commonly blends client-centered work with cognitive behavioral strategies. Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and understanding a person's experience, helping them set goals and feel heard. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps identify unhelpful thoughts and test new behaviors to reduce symptoms like anxiety and low mood.She also uses trauma-focused techniques and EMDR when painful memories or trauma-related symptoms are present. Trauma-focused therapy guides someone through safe, paced processing of traumatic experiences, while EMDR uses bilateral stimulation alongside focused memory work to reduce distress linked to specific memories. These approaches are chosen together, based on the person's history and current goals.
Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. Shanua will discuss options, try methods that match the client's needs, and adjust as progress is made. The aim is to pair practical tools with a supportive relationship so the work feels manageable.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different situations. Video enables face-to-face conversation for skill practice, phone calls can work when bandwidth is limited, live chat suits shorter check-ins, and text messaging supports ongoing coaching between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life and keep momentum between appointments.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 19 years
- Licensed
- South Dakota
- Languages
- English
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