Benia Thomas, LCSW

Benia Thomas is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), a credential that authorizes clinical social work practice. She earned a Master of Social Work degree from Fordham University in New York with an emphasis in children, youth, and families, and completed her bachelor’s degree in Social Work at Lehman College in the Bronx, NY.

Her professional path began in the New York City foster care system, working directly with children and families. She later provided counseling and facilitated empowerment and psychoeducation groups for incarcerated women with severe mental illness. In addition to direct clinical work, she served as a clinical supervisor offering guidance and oversight to master-level social workers.

Her clinical interests include stress, anxiety, depression, grief and loss, family and relationship concerns, personal growth, and issues related to the LGBTQ+ community. She particularly enjoys supporting adolescents and young adults. As a lesbian who has worked with the LGBTQ+ community on a professional basis for over ten years, she brings specific insight into challenges commonly faced within that experience.

Benia approaches healing as a collaborative process that requires honest, nonjudgmental care while helping clients clarify their goals for treatment. Rather than relying on a single model, she adapts methods to meet each person’s needs. Her therapeutic style is warm, open, encouraging, and direct, and she describes herself as an active therapist who combines experience, education, creativity, and a sense of humor with a straightforward, realistic approach to counseling.

She emphasizes that each individual's story and struggles are unique, and she works together with clients to understand what they are experiencing so that changes made in therapy are sustainable and meaningful.