About Brian
Dr. Brian Shaffer uses a person-centered approach to help people manage stress, grief, addiction, anxiety, and other struggles. He combines practical counseling with respect for each person’s spiritual beliefs.
Dr. Brian Shaffer has twenty years of clinical experience and holds the credentials LCMHC and LCPC. He focuses on helping people recover from past trauma and loss that continue to cause problems today.
Sessions typically work on specific skills for coping, plus exploring how earlier experiences shape current behavior and relationships.
Background and approach
He pays attention to intimacy, attachment, and issues around identity and sexual expression when those topics are relevant. Dr. Brian Shaffer draws from several familiar therapies to match the moment - approaches such as acceptance and commitment techniques, cognitive behavioral methods, and attachment-focused ideas.
That mix lets him shift between short-term skills practice and deeper processing work. Many people come for help with addiction, mood concerns like depression or bipolar, or long-term stress and burnout. He also supports those dealing with grief, caregiving strain, chronic illness, body-image problems, and work or career challenges.
Practical coping strategies are combined with attention to personal values and meaning. Sessions are offered in English and can include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Dr.
Brian Shaffer collaborates with each person to set clear goals and to find approaches that fit their life and preferences.
Therapeutic approaches and how they work online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them, then choose actions that match their values; it can be useful for anxiety, depression, and coping with life changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thinking patterns and practicing alternative behaviors, which is helpful for anxiety, mood disorders, and many day-to-day problems. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships influence current bonds and intimacy, and it can help when attachment or relationship patterns cause distress.Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist collaborates with each person to decide which methods fit best, combining short-term skill building with deeper exploration when needed. Goals, personal values, and practical life demands guide which techniques are tried.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to give more options for different needs. Video is useful for face-to-face conversation and skills practice. Phone sessions can work when bandwidth is limited or a quieter voice-only check-in is needed. Live chat and text messaging suit quick check-ins, brief coaching, or when someone prefers writing over talking. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, or travel schedules and support consistent progress.
Questions people ask
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What this counselor works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Existential Therapy
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed
- Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania
- Languages
- English