Shellby Custer, LCSW

Shellby Custer is a licensed clinical social worker who guides people through hard emotional times. She brings 23 years of experience and focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, and the effects of trauma. Her work centers on restoring a sense of self-worth and building stronger coping skills.

In sessions she helps people facing life transitions, chronic illness or pain, and problems with relationships and intimacy. She offers support for concerns such as grief, burnout, addiction, and mood disorders. She also addresses attachment wounds, abandonment, and patterns rooted in family of origin dynamics.

Shellby uses several practical approaches to help people change unhelpful patterns. She integrates ideas from attachment work, cognitive behavioral approaches, mindfulness, motivational interviewing, and narrative methods to fit each person’s needs. Conversations often include looking at relationships, noticing thoughts and behaviors, and finding small steps forward.

Her background spans many care settings over two decades, which informs how she supports people with complicated emotional histories. She pays particular attention to issues that affect daily life, such as sleep disruption, career stress, parenting strain, and compassion fatigue. She also works with people coping with ADHD, bipolar mood concerns, and personality-related challenges.

Sessions aim to be straightforward and focused on practical change. People who want help clarifying life purpose, overcoming shame or guilt, or recovering after sexual assault and abuse will find a practitioner who emphasizes empathy, steady pacing, and collaborative planning.

How key approaches translate to online therapy

Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships shape current patterns. Online work can help people notice recurring relationship themes and practice new ways of relating. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and changing small behaviors. In remote sessions this often means setting simple home-based experiments and tracking what changes.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist collaborates with the person to choose methods that match their goals, needs, and comfort level. That collaborative process includes checking what is helping and adjusting the plan over time.

Confirm which session formats are offered before booking, as the biography does not specify formats. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy life - for example a shorter check-in during a work break, or avoiding travel time on a hectic day. It can also allow consistent weekly meetings when schedules or health challenges make in-person visits difficult. Talk with the therapist when you match to discuss which format and session length will work best for your situation.