Marriage & Family Therapy · Lakeland
Registered Marriage and Family Therapist Intern. MS in Marriage and Family Therapy · Trained in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy · Practicing under licensed clinical supervision
Accepting new patients · Lakeland & Florida telehealth
Book with Diana
Request your first appointment
Tell us what you need, and who would be coming. A patient coordinator calls you back within one business day to get you scheduled.
Accepting new patients · Couples & family therapy
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Call (863) 510-2624Quick answer
Diana Frances Smith, MS, RMFTI, is a marriage and family therapist who sees individuals, couples and families in person at Ascend’s Lakeland office and by secure video anywhere in Florida. With couples she works in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT); with individuals and families she draws on systemic, psychodynamic and emotionally focused methods, matched to what each client needs at the time. She practices under licensed clinical supervision. Therapy is self-pay, with a superbill for out-of-network reimbursement. Call (863) 510-2624.
My approach is to slow things down, make room for what’s hard to say, and help you understand the patterns that keep you stuck — so you can respond with greater intention and build a deeper connection. Diana Frances Smith
EFCT is a structured couples therapy built on attachment research rather than communication drills. Instead of refereeing the argument, it works on the cycle underneath it — the moment one partner reaches and the other pulls away, and the hurt that keeps the loop running. In published clinical trials of Emotionally Focused Therapy, roughly 70–75% of couples no longer met the criteria for relationship distress and about 90% showed significant improvement. Diana has completed the EFT Externship and all EFCT Core Skills training and is working toward certification under supervision.
Research findings describe groups of couples in studies, not a prediction about any one couple. What Emotionally Focused Therapy is, in plain English.
Request a couples therapy consultationSessions are available to patients across Florida, under licensed clinical supervision.
Diana Frances Smith approaches therapy with the belief that meaningful change begins with feeling understood. When individuals, couples or families arrive stuck, her first move is to slow things down — to make sense of what each person is actually experiencing, and to name the pattern shaping the relationship. Her style is collaborative, curious and direct, with room for both honest reflection and practical change.
As a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist Intern, Diana considers each person in the context of their relationships, family history and lived experience. She is direct about how hard change is in practice: most people arrive already knowing what they would do differently, and the gap between knowing it and managing it under pressure is usually where the work actually sits.
Diana has completed the EFT Externship and all EFCT Core Skills training, and is working toward certification in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy under supervision. With couples, she helps partners see the negative cycle beneath recurring arguments and emotional distance. Together they explore the feelings and needs that are hardest to say out loud, which creates openings for partners to reach for each other in more open and responsive ways.
With families, Diana works systemically: the thing being treated is the pattern between people, not one person who has been cast as the problem. She draws on relational, psychodynamic and Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) methods. Family therapy here might be parents and a teenager who have stopped being able to talk, adult siblings negotiating a parent’s care, or a blended family working out a structure everyone can live with.
With individuals, Diana works integratively, drawing on systemic and psychodynamic approaches according to what a person needs at the time. She also incorporates DBT-informed skills to help clients manage intense emotions, question the assumptions driving a reaction, ask for what they need, and move through conflict with more intention. Emotional exploration is paired with practical tools clients can use between sessions.
She also works with people who want to change a relationship when their partner is not in the room — an approach sometimes called couples therapy for one. Across all of her work, Diana invites clients to look honestly at what hurts, to recognize the strengths they already carry, and to explore new possibilities for themselves and their relationships. All of Diana’s work happens under licensed clinical supervision.
Your first visit
No mystery, no phone tag. Here is the whole path from this page to your first session.
Tell us a little about what you need, and whether you are coming on your own, as a couple or as a family. A patient coordinator calls you back within one business day.
A coordinator confirms what to expect before your first session, including who should be in the room.
In person at the Lakeland office, or by secure video anywhere in Florida.
You keep the same therapist. Diana works under licensed clinical supervision throughout.
Every item below is within Diana's credentialed scope of practice as a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist Intern under licensed clinical supervision in Florida. Explore how she approaches each.
Where to find Diana
Clinical Supervisor leading the Lakeland therapy team. EMDR, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and integration, and client-focused counseling for individuals and families.
Accepting new patients
Individual talk therapy focused on building coping skills and emotional resilience.
Accepting new patientsReady when you are
Diana is accepting new patients at the Lakeland office and by secure video across Florida.
