Charmaine Smith, LMFT, MD, LCMFT
Skilled, practical therapy for everyday struggles
About Charmaine
Charmaine Smith is a licensed marriage and family therapist who focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, relationship strain, family conflict, and low self-esteem. She brings a calm, respectful presence to sessions and aims to make the first steps feel possible for someone worried or unsure about therapy.
Background and approach
She draws on 17 years of experience working with adults and individuals facing life transitions. Sessions are tailored to each person’s needs and goals.
Conversations are practical and down to earth, centered on what a person wants to change and how to get there. Charmaine uses a mix of approaches that help people understand patterns and try small changes.
She combines emotion-focused work with tools that change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors when those get in the way. Attachment ideas are used to look at how early relationships affect current ones.
Her style is collaborative and straightforward. People can expect to talk about immediate problems and also build skills for longer term challenges.
She emphasizes clear steps and real-world practice between meetings. Charmaine is licensed to practice in Kentucky, Maryland, and Texas and holds the credentials LMFT and LCMFT.
She offers sessions in English and works with caregivers, people dealing with adoption or blended family concerns, those facing health-related stress, and others needing coaching around commitment, communication, or parenting roles.
Therapeutic approaches adapted for online work
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, focuses on helping people clarify their values and take small steps toward a meaningful life even when uncomfortable thoughts or feelings are present. It can help with anxiety, low motivation, and the emptiness some people describe.Emotionally-Focused Therapy helps people identify and name strong feelings and see how those feelings shape relationships and reactions. It is useful for addressing communication problems, commitment concerns, and repeated patterns that cause distress.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will discuss goals, try techniques, and adjust the plan based on what helps most. Clients and the therapist decide together which methods to emphasize over time.
Online sessions are offered through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to provide flexibility. Video is useful for deeper conversations and reading nonverbal cues. Phone sessions can fit a busy schedule or be easier when bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text messaging allow shorter check-ins and ongoing coaching between meetings.
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Multicultural concerns
- Post-traumatic stress
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 17 years
- Licensed
- Kentucky, Texas, Maryland
- Languages
- English