About Alison
Alison McCandless is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) practicing in Colorado. She has three years of clinical experience working in community mental health settings and holds LCSW credentials in Illinois and Colorado. Alison focuses on practical support and clear steps to help people manage stress, mood concerns, trauma, and relationship struggles.
She draws on several therapy styles to match what a person needs. Alison uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to address unhelpful thinking and behaviors, Dialectical Behavior Therapy to teach coping and emotion skills, and attachment-informed approaches to understand relationship patterns.
How Alison works
She also brings psychodynamic ideas to help untangle connections to past experiences. Sessions often begin by looking at what is causing the most trouble now. Alison gathers a person's history and uses a biopsychosocial lens to see how life, body, and relationships interact.
Then she works with clients on concrete skills, behavior changes, and meaning-making to improve day-to-day functioning. Her background includes work with people facing anxiety, depression, bipolar symptoms, trauma and abuse, addiction, grief, eating and food concerns, anger, and compassion fatigue. Alison also helps with issues like attachment and abandonment fears, communication problems, workplace stress, and life purpose.
She offers video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to fit different needs. Sessions use a subscription model that can be canceled at any time. To start, clients complete a short matching questionnaire and schedule according to therapist availability.
Alison lists 8 ways of working on the entry:
What Alison works with
The areas below are the ones Alison selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Bipolar disorder
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Family conflicts
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Life purpose
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Registers | LCSW, CSW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 3 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Colorado |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Approaches that guide online care
Alison commonly uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy in her online work. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on the links between thoughts, feelings, and actions and helps people change unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns; it is useful for anxiety, depression, and mood problems. Dialectical Behavior Therapy emphasizes emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness skills to manage strong emotions and reduce impulsive reactions.She also draws on attachment-informed approaches that look at how early relationship patterns affect current connections and boundaries. Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process - Alison will learn about a person's goals, history, and day-to-day needs and then suggest methods that fit. That plan can change as work progresses and goals shift.
Online options include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to provide flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when bandwidth and scheduling allow. Phone sessions can work when a video connection isn't possible or a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging make it easier to fit support into a busy day or to maintain contact between longer sessions.
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Common questions
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A practical next step
Write down two things you would want to be different in six months. That is the most useful thing to bring to a first session, whoever it is with. If you would rather start now than keep reading, online sessions are the quickest route.
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