Susan Schwerd

Susan Schwerd is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in Maryland with 24 years of experience. She helps people facing stress, anxiety, trauma, depression, bipolar mood challenges, grief, and career concerns. She also supports those coping with chronic pain, illness, and major life changes. Her style blends practical coaching with psychotherapy to help people move forward.

She began her career after earning a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Temple University and worked for seven years in a large outpatient mental health organization, including time as an assistant clinical director. Before training as a therapist, she spent ten years as a human resources director, experience she brings to work on career and professional productivity issues.

Susan’s therapeutic base is psychodynamic, and she uses an active, eclectic approach. She mixes psychodynamic insight with Solution-Focused techniques and offers hypnotherapy as an adjunct. In sessions she helps people identify the patterns that keep them stuck and try new ways of responding to current problems.

Practical tools such as self-hypnosis and breathing exercises are part of her work, especially for managing chronic pain and anxiety. She has experience working with veterans and has received specialized training from military organizations for non-military professionals.

Her practice offers live video and phone sessions, and she replies to a limited number of messages between meetings. Prospective clients should confirm session options and scheduling before booking.

Approaches used in online sessions and how they help

Susan uses Hypnotherapy to teach self-hypnosis and breathing techniques that can help manage anxiety and chronic pain. These tools are practical and aimed at giving daily coping options for distressing symptoms.

Her psychodynamic work looks at underlying feelings and recurring relationship or behavior patterns. This approach can help people understand why they react a certain way and create new responses to current challenges.

Solution-Focused Therapy emphasizes small, achievable steps toward specific goals. It is useful when someone wants clear strategies and short-term progress on a particular problem like work stress or sleep disruption.

Finding the right approach is part of the process. The therapist will work collaboratively to match techniques to a person’s needs, goals, and preferences, adjusting the mix of hypnotherapy, psychodynamic reflection, and Solution-Focused work as treatment progresses.

Her practice offers online live video and phone sessions. If you plan to try online work, confirm which session formats are available when scheduling. Online sessions can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life, allow shorter check-ins when needed, and let people learn self-regulation techniques they can use between meetings.