Luciana Smalls, LPC

Luciana Smalls is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in South Carolina who focuses on practical support for people facing stress, anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, and trauma and abuse. She builds therapy around the person in front of her and uses straightforward tools to help with daily struggles. Luciana aims to teach skills that make life feel more manageable and meaningful.

She draws on about nine years as a practicing counselor and more than two decades in human services. That background includes work with adoption and foster care concerns, parenting and blended family issues, addiction, ADHD, and grief. Luciana also helps people with communication problems, commitment worries, body image, and caregiver stress.

Her style blends a warm, supportive approach with gentle challenge. Sessions often include problem-solving, behavior-focused techniques, and attention to values and strengths. She uses client-centered methods alongside cognitive behavioral tools and mindfulness to help people change unhelpful patterns and respond to hard moments more effectively.

Clients set goals and co-create a plan that fits their life. Luciana brings skills from motivational interviewing and dialectical behavior ideas when a problem calls for them. The focus is practical: learn new ways to manage emotions, improve relationships, and move toward meaningful change.

She works with people across a wide range of concerns, including LGBT issues, intimacy-related problems, career transitions, compassion fatigue, hospice and end-of-life counseling, and intellectual disability. Sessions are offered in English for residents of South Carolina.

How her approaches translate to online therapy

Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and responding to each person's experience. The therapist follows the client's lead, reflects what they hear, and builds a plan around the client's goals and values. This style helps when someone needs a respectful space to sort feelings and decisions.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, actions, and feelings interact. It uses practical exercises and small experiments to test new behaviors. CBT can help with anxiety, depression, impulsivity, and many everyday problems by giving tools to change unhelpful habits.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, adds skills for managing strong emotions and improving relationships. It teaches techniques such as distress tolerance and emotional regulation that are useful for people who struggle with intense feelings or impulsive reactions.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with the client to decide which methods fit best based on needs, goals, and preferences. That plan can change as progress is made and new priorities arise.

Confirm current session formats before booking so expectations match what the therapist offers. Online work can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life, reduce travel time, and allow shorter check-ins when schedules are tight. Licensed professionals can use the tools above in remote sessions to practice skills, review homework, and keep progress moving forward.