Donna Sarvela

Donna Sarvela is a licensed clinical social worker with 13 years of experience helping people navigate stress, anxiety, addictions, trauma, and depression. She focuses on practical steps that make daily life feel more manageable. She creates a nonjudgmental space where people can speak honestly about their thoughts and feelings.

Her work emphasizes strengths and personal agency. She supports people who are coping with life changes and with patterns that cause recurring problems, such as codependency or substance use. Sessions often center on identifying small, meaningful shifts a person can try between meetings.

Donna draws on several approaches to suit each person’s needs. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps spot and change unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns. Client-Centered Therapy keeps the client’s experience at the core of sessions. Mindfulness practices are used to build moment-to-moment awareness and reduce reactivity.

She also uses Motivational Interviewing to help people clarify their goals and find motivation for change, plus psychodynamic ideas to look at how past relationships shape current patterns. Treatment plans are collaborative and practical, not one-size-fits-all.

Donna is licensed in Utah and California as an LCSW. Conversations are straightforward and goal-focused, with attention to both symptom relief and longer-term growth. To begin, people choose the Start Therapy button, complete a short matching questionnaire, and schedule according to therapist availability.

How Donna’s approaches fit into online therapy

Client-Centered Therapy focuses on the person’s experience and offers a respectful, listening-based approach. In practice this means the therapist follows the client’s lead and centers their concerns when deciding what to work on. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at the connections between thoughts, feelings, and actions and helps people try small changes to reduce symptoms like anxiety or low mood. Mindfulness Therapy teaches present-moment awareness and simple exercises to reduce reactivity and improve focus.

Finding the right approach is a joint process. Donna will work together with the client to decide which methods match their goals, values, and needs. That collaboration may shift over time as short-term goals are met or new concerns come up.

The original biography does not list specific online formats, so verify current session options before booking. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy week, shorten check-ins when needed, and offer alternatives to travel. It also allows continuity of work during life changes and makes it possible to use mindfulness and CBT exercises between sessions for steady progress.