About Barbara
Barbara Pettibone is a Colorado-licensed clinical social worker with 46 years of experience helping people navigate big life changes. She focuses on practical support for stress, anxiety, grief, depression, and issues that come with aging and health changes. Barbara meets people where they are and treats them with warmth and directness.
Her background includes work in inpatient psychiatric hospitals and outpatient settings, giving her a wide view of mental health needs.
How Barbara works
She especially supports older adults facing loss, shifting relationships, and coping with medical or functional changes. She also helps people with relationship and intimacy-related concerns, parenting strains, career questions, and self-esteem struggles. Barbara believes the client is in charge of therapy and prefers a collaborative style.
Together she and the client set clear goals and pick approaches that fit the person and the problem. She describes herself as honest, forthright, warm, and caring in sessions. Her clinical toolkit draws on attachment-based ideas, client-centered principles, cognitive behavioral techniques, dialectical behavior methods, and emotionally-focused work.
She also uses grief-focused strategies, mindfulness, and behavior-based methods depending on what the client needs. Sessions are offered through video calls, phone, live chat, or text messaging. Barbara accepts international clients and conducts therapy in English.
To begin, users complete a short matching questionnaire and schedule sessions according to availability.
Barbara lists 14 ways of working on the entry:
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Systemic Therapy
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.
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Registers | LCSW, CSW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 46 |
| 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
How her approaches translate to online therapy
Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships shape current patterns. It helps people understand trust, closeness, and fears of abandonment and apply new ways of relating. Client-Centered Therapy focuses on the person’s experience and pacing; the therapist listens deeply and follows the client’s lead to build insight and self-direction.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will discuss goals, try methods that fit, and adjust over time based on what helps most. Clients and the therapist work together to find the combination of strategies that meets specific needs and preferences.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to add flexibility. Video is useful for full sessions that need face-to-face interaction, while phone calls can be simpler when lower bandwidth or hands-free conversation is needed. Live chat and text messaging are practical for brief check-ins, homework support, or when written reflection feels most helpful. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life and to continue care across locations.
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Common questions
What kinds of concerns does she address?
What is her therapeutic style like?
How much experience does she have in mental health?
What are her credentials and where is she located?
Which languages and international options are supported?
What session formats are available?
How are sessions paid for and what do they cost?
What are the steps to begin working together?
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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