Lori Brinkley, LCSW

Lori Brinkley is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with 25 years of experience. She focuses on relationship concerns and on helping people manage stress, anxiety, grief, and life transitions. Her style is direct but warm, and she uses practical tools to help people make changes.

Lori often helps people navigating parenting and co-parenting challenges, divorce and separation, adoption and foster care issues, and blended family stress. She also supports people dealing with trauma and abuse, compassion fatigue, career pressures, and intimacy-related struggles. LGBT concerns and issues tied to family of origin are part of her practice focus as well.

Her work blends client-centered conversations with action-oriented skills. Lori relies heavily on cognitive behavioral techniques and mindfulness practices to help shift unhelpful thoughts and build workable habits. She also draws on dialectical behavior strategies and solution-focused methods to teach coping skills and set clear, achievable goals.

Sessions mix practical skill building with honest feedback. Lori balances challenge and support, and she brings humor into sessions when it fits. She offers coaching-style guidance for people wanting concrete tools for boundaries, communication, or emotional regulation.

Outside of practice she is a mother, an outdoor enthusiast, and a lifelong learner who enjoys travel, reading suspense novels, and finding waterfalls. She describes growth as a step-by-step process and invites people to explore new perspectives while getting understood and validated.

How Lori's approaches translate to online work

Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and understanding a person's experience, then helping them find their own solutions; it supports people who need validation and a collaborative space to sort out feelings. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps people notice and change unhelpful thoughts and habits, which is useful for anxiety, depression, and many stress-related problems. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) offers concrete skills for regulating intense emotions, improving relationships, and handling crises in calmer ways.

Choosing the right approach is part of the work. Lori will partner with each person to figure out which methods fit best based on goals, preferences, and how they respond in early sessions. She blends techniques as needed rather than prescribing a single route.

If you are considering online sessions, confirm the current session options before booking. Online work can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule, reduce travel time, and allow shorter check-ins when needed. It also supports using in-the-moment tools like mindfulness practice or skill rehearsals in everyday settings. Ask about specific session formats when you complete the matching questionnaire so you know what is offered for scheduling and planning.