About Athena
Dr. Athena Porter brings more than two decades of clinical experience to her work in Illinois. She holds a doctorate in Clinical/Community Psychology and practices as an LCPC.
Her background includes helping people manage anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress, and other mental health challenges. She also offers coaching and wellness support focused on personal growth. Her style is straightforward and practical.
Sessions focus on real-life problems and steps people can take between meetings.
How Athena works
She blends cognitive approaches with humanistic and sociocultural perspectives, tailoring conversations to each person's situation. Short-term goals and skills practice are common tools in her work. Dr.
Porter also draws on mindfulness and hypnotherapy techniques when those methods fit a person's needs. She uses ideas from existential therapy to help people clarify values and meaning during major life transitions. Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills appear when emotional regulation and distress tolerance are priorities.
Over 21 years she has provided services in community settings, at health fairs, and through public education campaigns. That community focus informs her practical, outreach-minded approach. She aims to meet people where they are and help them build coping strategies that fit everyday life.
People seeking help with stress, addiction, grief, parenting strain, career questions, or relationship and intimacy concerns will find a clinician who emphasizes clear steps and collaborative planning. She works with individuals in English and provides therapy through a mix of session formats to fit different schedules.
Athena lists 8 ways of working on the entry:
What Athena works with
The areas below are the ones Athena selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Anger management
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Grief
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LCPC |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 21 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Illinois |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
How therapeutic approaches translate to online care
Dr. Porter blends Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Mindfulness Therapy into many online sessions. CBT focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing them with practical experiments to change behavior and mood. Mindfulness Therapy teaches attention and breathing exercises that help reduce stress and ground a person during anxiety or panic.She also incorporates Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills when emotion regulation or intense reactions are present. DBT skills include techniques for tolerating distress, managing intense feelings, and improving communication in stressful moments. Together these approaches offer tools for everyday coping, crisis moments, and longer-term mood concerns.
Finding the right approach is a joint process. The therapist will ask about goals, history, and preferences and then recommend a mix of methods. Clients and therapist adjust methods over time based on what is working and what feels manageable.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy flexible. Video is useful for in-depth conversation and skills practice, phone can work when bandwidth is limited, and chat or messaging can fit quick check-ins or short coaching-style exchanges. These options make it easier to fit sessions into busy schedules and keep continuity between meetings.
Start online instead of waiting
Our partner service asks a few questions about what you are looking for and matches you with a therapist for sessions from home.
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Common questions
What kinds of problems does she help with?
What is her general therapy style?
How long has she been practicing?
What credential does she hold and where is she based?
Can sessions be conducted in other languages or with international clients?
What session formats are available?
How does billing and cost work?
What are the first steps to begin therapy?
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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