About Shakira
Shakira Thomas is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) practicing in Tennessee. She has seven years of counseling experience helping people who face stress, anxiety, relationship strains, grief, anger, and depression. She believes clients know their story best and brings a collaborative spirit to each session.
Her approach centers on listening and building on a person's strengths. She encourages small, practical steps that fit into real life. Sessions focus on what the client wants to change and on ways to reach those goals.
Background and approach
Shakira draws from client-centered work and cognitive behavioral techniques to help people rethink unhelpful patterns and try different behaviors. She also uses mindfulness strategies to calm the body and mind during stressful moments. Motivational interviewing helps people find their own reasons to change.
Many of her focus areas include attachment and abandonment concerns, codependency, communication problems, and family of origin issues. She also addresses body image, caregiver stress, commitment concerns, divorce and separation, and feelings of emptiness. In sessions she aims to make the work clear and manageable.
She supports clients as they practice new skills between meetings and checks progress along the way. The goal is to build skills that make everyday life feel more manageable and meaningful.
How these approaches translate to online work
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening, respect, and following the client's lead to set goals. In online sessions this means the therapist spends time understanding what matters most and helps people shape steps that fit their daily routines.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps identify unhelpful thoughts and change behaviors that keep problems going. Online CBT often uses homework, short skill practices, and clear steps to try between meetings so progress can be tracked week to week.
Mindfulness Therapy teaches simple attention and breathing practices to reduce reactivity and calm strong feelings. These exercises translate well to video or phone sessions and can be short practices used during a break or before bed.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to pick methods that match goals and preferences, and she will adjust the plan as progress is observed.
Online sessions offer flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video is useful for deeper conversation and visual cues, phone calls can be easier when less bandwidth is available, and chat or messaging can support quick check-ins or brief coaching between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules and to keep steady contact while working toward goals.
Questions people ask
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How would therapy sessions generally feel?
What is her background and experience?
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Which languages are available for sessions?
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What this counselor works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Grief
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Body image
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 7 years
- Licensed
- Tennessee
- Languages
- English