About Barbara
Barbara Austin is a licensed independent social worker - clinical practice (LISW-CP) with 25 years of counseling experience. She listens to each person's story and helps them find ways to change patterns that cause pain. Her approach is calm and thoughtful, with an emphasis on practical steps people can use between sessions.
She supports people coping with stress, anxiety, depression, grief, trauma and abuse, and intimacy-related issues. Parenting concerns, postpartum depression, pregnancy and childbirth questions, and women's issues are also areas she addresses.
How Barbara works
Barbara also helps with codependency, communication problems, family of origin issues, and struggles around self esteem, guilt, shame, and life purpose. Barbara blends several therapeutic styles to match the person in front of her. She uses attachment-based ideas to look at relationship patterns, client-centered methods to follow the client's pace, and cognitive behavioral techniques to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors.
She also draws on narrative and existential approaches to help people make meaning and choose values that guide their lives. Sessions are offered in English and take place online through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Barbara is licensed in South Carolina and holds the LISW-CP credential.
She frames therapy as a collaborative process where the person's values and goals come first. To begin, people complete a short matching questionnaire and schedule according to therapist availability. Therapy uses a subscription model that can be canceled at any time, and cost varies with location and therapist availability.
Barbara lists 6 ways of working on the entry:
What Barbara works with
The areas below are the ones Barbara selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Parenting issues
- Self esteem
Also listed
Training and background
| Register | LISW-CP |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 25 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | South Carolina |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Approach-driven online therapy for relationships and meaning
Barbara uses attachment-based ideas to look at how early and current relationships shape feelings and reactions, which can help with intimacy issues, relationship patterns, and trauma responses. Client-centered work means sessions focus on the person's priorities and move at their pace, offering acceptance and reflection rather than imposed solutions. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) targets the thoughts and behaviors that keep distress going, providing concrete tools to reduce anxiety, shift unhelpful thinking, and change routines.Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work. She collaborates with each person to identify goals and tries approaches that fit those goals and personal preferences. Together they review what helps and adjust methods as needed so therapy stays practical and relevant.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to make therapy fit different schedules. Video calls are useful for face-to-face conversation, phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited, live chat can suit brief check-ins, and text messaging allows ongoing reflections between sessions. These options aim to make care more flexible and easier to fit into busy lives.
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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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