About Nicole
Dr. Nicole Donato draws on person-centered care and practical therapy methods to help people manage stress, anxiety, addiction, mood shifts, and relationship worries. She writes plainly and works alongside clients to make therapy understandable and useful.
Nicole holds a Licensed Professional Counselor credential and brings eleven years of clinical experience in New Jersey. Her background includes work in an inpatient psychiatric hospital, outpatient therapy, and service as a social worker for a foster family agency.
Background and approach
She also teaches at the college level and values the moment when learning clicks for a student or a client. In sessions she uses Client-Centered Therapy to build a trusting working relationship. That means she aims to be genuine, empathetic, and to understand each person’s life story before moving forward.
She pairs this with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people notice unhelpful self-talk and change thinking patterns that fuel anxiety or low mood. She also borrows tools from Motivational Interviewing to support change and from psychodynamic ideas to look at how past experiences shape current feelings.
Together these approaches are used to address a wide range of concerns, including grief, trauma, eating and substance issues, ADHD, and career stress. Nicole prefers a collaborative process. She helps clients set goals, tries different strategies, and adjusts the plan based on what suits each person.
Her style is straightforward and focused on practical steps that fit everyday life.
How therapeutic approaches translate to online sessions
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening, acceptance, and building a strong working relationship. In an online session this looks like the therapist asking open questions, reflecting what the client says, and adapting the pace to each person's needs. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and actions and teaches specific skills to change unhelpful patterns. Online CBT sessions use practical homework, thought records, and skill practice that clients can work on between meetings.Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will review your concerns, goals, and preferences and suggest which methods to try. That decision is collaborative and can change over time if something is not helping.
Online formats offer flexibility for busy schedules and different needs. Video calls let people see facial expressions and practice social skills. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can be easier during travel or a tight day. Live chat and text-based messaging allow brief check-ins, written exercises, and ongoing support between longer sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into daily life while using the approaches that suit each person.
Questions people ask
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What this counselor works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Eating disorders
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 11 years
- Licensed
- New Jersey
- Languages
- English