Jerry Smith
New to Grow
I’m a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 40 years of experience helping people from all walks of life navigate anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship challenges, and major life transitions. I’m also a U.S. Navy veteran, which shaped my deep respect for resilience, discipline, and service. My work blends evidence-based therapy with practical, real-world insight, and I’m the author of Happiness Is Easy, Being Unhappy Is What’s Hard, a book rooted in decades of clinical experience. I believe therapy should be grounded, collaborative, and focused on helping you build clarity, stability, and lasting emotional strength.
Get to know me
In our first session together, here's what you can expect
Our First Session During our first session, my goal is to create a safe, respectful space where you can begin telling your story at your own pace. We will start with a brief questionnaire that helps me understand who you are and the context of your life, including your childhood experiences, marital or relationship status, number of children, education, employment history, and any significant legal or medical events. We will also discuss substance use, if applicable, as part of understanding your overall well-being. An important part of this first meeting is exploring why you’ve decided to seek therapy now—what has brought you here at this point in your life, and what you hope might change. From there, we’ll begin identifying goals and discussing how therapy can best support you moving forward.
The biggest strengths that I bring into our sessions
My Greatest Therapeutic Strengths What stands out most about my therapeutic approach is depth combined with practicality. I help clients understand why they feel the way they do, while also giving them tools to move forward in real, sustainable ways. I draw from evidence-based methods, life experience, and clinical intuition to tailor therapy to each individual—not a one-size-fits-all model. Clients often tell me they feel genuinely seen, challenged in a respectful way, and empowered rather than judged. I focus on clarity, emotional resilience, and helping people reconnect with their own inner strength and agency.
The clients I'm best positioned to serve
My Ideal Clients I’m best positioned to work with adults who feel overwhelmed, emotionally stuck, or worn down by stress, anxiety, depression, life transitions, or long-standing patterns that no longer serve them. Many of my clients are thoughtful, self-aware individuals who are tired of surface-level solutions and want meaningful, sustainable change. I work especially well with people seeking clarity, emotional regulation, healthier thinking patterns, improved relationships, and a stronger sense of personal agency. Clients who value insight, accountability, and a grounded, no-nonsense approach to healing tend to find my style a good fit.
Location
VirtualMy treatment methods
Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)
I have extensive experience using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as a core treatment approach in my clinical practice, and I apply it in a practical, client-centered way rather than as a rigid technique. CBT helps clients understand the connection between their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and how unexamined thinking patterns often drive distress, anxiety, depression, and maladaptive coping. In my work, I help clients identify automatic thoughts, challenge distorted beliefs, and replace them with more accurate, balanced perspectives that support healthier emotional and behavioral responses. I use CBT flexibly and in combination with insight-oriented, trauma-informed, and strengths-based approaches. With adults, I often integrate CBT to address anxiety, depression, mood regulation, trauma responses, self-esteem issues, and life transitions. I emphasize skill-building—such as cognitive restructuring, behavioral activation, problem-solving, and emotional regulation—while also exploring the deeper personal and social contexts that shape belief systems. My goal is not simply symptom reduction, but helping clients develop lasting tools for self-awareness, resilience, and intentional decision-making that extend well beyond the therapy setting.