Joelle Purdy
Compassionate strategies for grief and life changes
LICSW District of Columbia
- Experience
- 4 years in practice
- Focus areas
- Grief, Stress, Anxiety, Relationship
- Approaches
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Client-Centered Therapy
- Languages
- English
About Joelle
Joelle Purdy is a licensed independent social worker (LICSW) practicing in the District of Columbia who centers her work on practical, collaborative strategies. She blends cognitive behavioral ideas with mindfulness and motivational interviewing to help clients identify unhelpful thoughts, build coping skills, and bring attention to present-moment experience.
Background and approach
With a warm, interactive style she aims to adapt sessions to each person’s goals while maintaining a respectful and compassionate stance. Her practice emphasizes support for people navigating grief and loss, including anticipatory grief and end-of-life concerns, as well as stress, anxiety, depression, relationship and family challenges, intimacy issues, parenting concerns, self-esteem, career transitions, and broader life changes.
Additional focuses include caregiver stress, blended family dynamics, aging and geriatric matters, forgiveness and guilt, multicultural concerns, women’s issues, and cultivating self-love and life purpose. Clients can expect a strengths-oriented approach that values listening and rapport-building while offering practical tools and reflective exploration.
Joelle frames therapy as a partnership that supports clients as they work toward balance, meaning, and clearer direction in their lives.
Integrating practical therapy approaches for online care
Joelle frequently draws on cognitive behavioral techniques to help clients identify and shift unhelpful thoughts and behaviour patterns, a method useful for anxiety, stress, depression, and many forms of grief. She also incorporates client-centered principles that prioritize empathic listening and collaboration, creating space for clients to reflect and set personal goals. Mindfulness practices are used to strengthen present-moment awareness and coping skills for emotional regulation and stress management.Choosing the right approach is part of the therapeutic process, and Joelle frames this as a collaborative exploration. She works with each person to tailor methods to their values, needs, and goals, adjusting the mix of strategies over time so the work stays practical and relevant.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging, which supports flexibility for varied schedules and comfort levels. These formats can make it easier to access consistent care, try different communication styles, and integrate therapeutic work into daily life while still working from the therapeutic approaches described above.
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Areas of expertise
Primary focus
Also works with
Additional focus areas
Therapeutic approaches
Experience
4+ years
Licensed
District of Columbia
Languages
English