Susan Essich-Kruse, LICSW, LISW-CP

Susan Essich-Kruse is a licensed social worker with 20 years of practice experience. She is licensed in South Carolina and Massachusetts and focuses on helping people with stress, anxiety, relationship concerns, parenting challenges, and depression. She speaks plainly and offers steady support as people take the first steps toward change.

She sees each person as the expert on their own life and looks for strengths to build on. In sessions she listens first, asks practical questions, and helps clients try small changes that can make everyday life easier. She emphasizes collaboration and respects each person’s pace for change.

Susan uses client-centered ways of working, which means the conversation follows what matters most to the client. She also draws on mindfulness techniques to help people manage strong emotions and reduce automatic stress reactions. Her systemic perspective helps when patterns in relationships or family life are part of the problem.

Across two decades she has supported people through divorce and separation, blended family adjustments, adoption and foster care issues, aging and geriatric concerns, and other family-related stresses. She also works with mood disorders, emptiness, and women’s issues, and she helps people improve communication and cope with life transitions.

Her approach is straightforward and practical. Sessions focus on what a person wants to change and on small steps they can try between meetings. To start, she invites people to sign up, fill a short questionnaire, and schedule a first visit.

How her approaches translate to online work

Client-Centered Therapy focuses on following what matters to the client and building on their own strengths. In practice this means the therapist listens, reflects what she hears, and helps clients set goals that feel relevant and doable. That approach supports work on relationships, parenting, and mood concerns.

Mindfulness Therapy teaches simple attention and breathing practices that reduce reactivity and help with anxiety and stress. These short skills can be practiced between meetings to help with day-to-day emotional regulation.

Systemic Therapy looks at patterns in relationships and family life that keep problems repeating. It helps identify how interactions, roles, and routines contribute to stress and suggests adjustments that can change those patterns over time.

Finding the right approach is part of the process. The therapist works collaboratively to match methods to a person's needs, goals, and preferences. She will discuss which ideas to try first and adjust the plan as progress is made.

Confirm the therapist’s current session options before booking, since formats are listed on the profile at scheduling. Online work can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy week, cut travel time, or use shorter phone or video check-ins when that suits a person’s schedule. Licensed professionals can adapt pacing and exercises to work well in a remote format while focusing on practical steps people can use between sessions.