Caitlin Eshelman

Caitlin Eshelman is a licensed clinical social worker with 16 years of experience in the District of Columbia. She focuses on helping people navigate stress, anxiety, depression, and major life changes. Caitlin creates an affirming environment for those questioning identity or working through relationship and intimacy concerns.

Her work often includes support around grief, trauma and abuse, and self-esteem issues. She also helps people manage panic attacks, mood shifts, and the complexities that come with pregnancy and postpartum changes. Caitlin lists coping with life changes among her areas of focus, and she attends to how attachment and abandonment experiences affect current relationships.

Caitlin uses straightforward, collaborative methods in sessions. She draws from Client-Centered Therapy to center the person’s perspective and from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to identify patterns that maintain worry or low mood. Solution-Focused and Trauma-Focused approaches guide short-term goals and recovery from difficult events.

Her practice also addresses topics some find hard to talk about, such as BDSM, kink, non-monogamous relationships, and sexual intimacy. She works on communication problems, control issues, and the fallout of separation or domestic violence in an empathetic way.

Caitlin aims to help people find practical steps they can try between sessions. She listens for strengths and builds small, doable plans that fit daily life. This makes therapy feel useful from the first few meetings onward.

How therapeutic approaches translate to online work

Client-Centered Therapy centers the person's experience and priorities, helping the therapist follow what matters most to the client and reflect that back in clear, simple ways. This approach helps people feel heard and shapes sessions around their goals.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at the links between thoughts, feelings, and actions. It offers concrete tools to reduce worry, manage panic, and change patterns that keep mood low. CBT often uses short exercises and between-session practice to build new habits.

Finding the right approach is a shared process. The therapist will talk with each person about goals and preferences, then suggest methods to try. If something doesn’t fit, adjustments are made together so work stays focused and practical.

Confirm current session options before booking, since specific online formats are not listed in the biography. In general, online work can make it easier to fit therapy into busy days, shorten commute time, and allow for flexible scheduling around work or childcare. It can also let people use different kinds of check-ins and short exercises between sessions to keep progress moving.