About Ann
Ann Ghabel is a licensed independent social worker (LISW) based in Iowa who uses a client-centered approach to guide people through stress, anxiety, grief, and life changes. She brings a calm, steady presence and focuses on practical steps that make daily life easier. Ann draws on 11 years of therapy experience alongside a long background in psychiatric nursing and teaching.
Her work blends talk therapy with techniques that help people understand and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors.
How Ann works
She uses cognitive behavioral therapy to map thought patterns and dialectical behavior therapy skills to teach emotion regulation and distress tolerance. Mindfulness practices and hypnotherapy are also available tools when they fit a person’s needs. Ann often helps people facing parenting strain, family conflict, trauma or abuse, and challenges with sleep, eating, or chronic illness.
She also supports those coping with career stress, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and compassion fatigue. Her approach is practical and goal-oriented while remaining warm and accepting. Sessions focus on clear steps people can try between meetings.
Homework and simple skill practice are offered when useful. The aim is steady progress rather than quick fixes, with pacing set by each person’s comfort level. Ann welcomes conversations about what someone hopes to get from therapy and works collaboratively to design a plan.
She combines clinical knowledge with years of hands-on experience in psychiatric settings to help people move forward.
Ann lists 8 ways of working on the entry:
What Ann works with
The areas below are the ones Ann selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating disorders
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LISW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 11 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Iowa |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
How therapy approaches translate online
Client-centered therapy focuses on the person’s own goals and experiences. Online, that looks like conversations that follow what matters most to the client and decisions made together about next steps. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, helps people identify and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors through practical exercises. In remote sessions CBT can include worksheets, activity plans, and guided real-life experiments to try between meetings. Dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, teaches emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal skills. Online DBT emphasizes skill coaching, practice of grounding techniques, and building routines to manage strong emotions.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with the client about symptoms, goals, and what feels most useful. Together they will try methods and adjust the plan based on results and personal preference, so the work fits each person’s life and pace.
Online formats offer practical flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when visual cues matter. Phone sessions work well when a quieter connection or lower bandwidth is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging suit shorter check-ins, brief skill reminders, or people who prefer writing. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule and to continue work consistently across distance.
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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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