About Shirley
Shirley "Elizabeth" Loftin is a Licensed Professional Counselor who helps people find steadier footing during stressful times. She draws on four decades of practice to offer calm, practical support for anxiety, mood shifts, trauma, grief, and identity questions. She believes each person knows their life best and brings a strengths-based approach to sessions.
Conversations focus on what matters to the client and on practical steps that can be tried between meetings.
Background and approach
Elizabeth uses client-centered methods to build trust and listen closely to each person’s priorities. She also applies cognitive behavioral techniques to identify unhelpful thinking and to practice new, manageable habits. For people affected by past trauma, she offers trauma-focused work that moves at a pace the client can handle.
That work aims to reduce overwhelming reactions and increase a sense of control over daily life. Elizabeth has worked in Louisiana for many years and draws on a broad background helping people with stress, relationship strain, compassion fatigue, and identity-related concerns. She supports those navigating life changes, caregiving burdens, and the emotional impact of loss.
People who meet with her can expect straightforward conversation, collaborative planning, and attention to small steps that add up. Her experience is used to tailor approaches to each person’s needs and goals.
Approaches that guide online sessions
The client-centered approach focuses on listening and understanding each person’s priorities. The therapist follows the client’s lead, reflects what she hears, and helps people discover their own strengths and choices. This approach is useful for building trust and deciding what to work on next.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions connect. Sessions include practicing new ways of thinking and small behavioral experiments to reduce anxiety or depression. CBT is practical and often used for mood disorders, panic, and low self-esteem.
Trauma-focused therapy concentrates on reducing the hold of past traumatic events. Work proceeds at the person’s pace and includes grounding and coping strategies to manage strong reactions and dissociation. It aims to increase safety and a sense of control over daily life.
Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, preferences, and comfort level, then adapt methods as needed. Together they decide which techniques to try and when to adjust the plan.
Online formats offer flexibility for modern life. Video calls let people meet face to face when bandwidth allows, phone sessions can be easier when a camera isn’t wanted, live chat works for shorter check-ins, and text messaging supports ongoing reflection between sessions. These options help fit therapy into work, caregiving, and busy schedules.
Questions people ask
What kinds of concerns does she help with?
What is her therapeutic style like?
How much experience does she bring?
What credentials and region are listed?
Which languages are sessions offered in?
What session formats are available?
How does payment work and what does it cost?
How do I begin working with her?
What this counselor works with
Most often
Also listed
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Family of origin issues
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Isolation / loneliness
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 40 years
- Licensed
- Louisiana
- Languages
- English