Steven Osterstrom, LCSW

Steven Osterstrom is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in New York with 24 years of experience helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, trauma, relationship concerns, and parenting issues. He works with individuals on questions of identity, career strain, grief, intimacy, and coping with major life changes. Sessions are practical and focused on changing unhelpful thoughts and habits.

He draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) alongside Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), client-centered methods, and mindfulness practices. That mix is used to notice thought patterns, practice new behaviors, and learn skills for emotional regulation. Mindfulness exercises are often included to help reduce reactivity and increase present-moment awareness.

Steven also has long experience teaching social work graduate students and leading group work. He has volunteered with the Alternatives to Violence Project in prisons, running groups that practiced nonviolent conflict skills. Those roles have shaped his work with diverse backgrounds and strengthened a gender-inclusive, anti-racist stance.

In sessions he focuses on concrete steps - identifying beliefs that cause distress, testing them, and trying different coping strategies. He uses straightforward tools from CBT and DBT to address anxiety, mood, and relationship patterns. He helps people work through family of origin issues, attachment questions, codependency, and communication problems.

Practical concerns like parenting, fatherhood issues, career direction, and life purpose are also common topics. He supports people facing grief, guilt, shame, and the long-term effects of trauma. The work emphasizes building skills and practicing them between sessions.

How his CBT and related approaches work in online sessions