About Charlene
Charlene Thiede is a licensed social worker with 37 years of clinical experience. She practices in Iowa as an LMSW and LISW and focuses on helping people make practical, lasting changes. Charlene keeps the first meetings simple and focused on what matters most now.
Her early work as a school social worker gave her direct experience with children's challenges in educational settings. She later provided behavioral health counseling in personal and agency settings, working with people across the lifespan.
How Charlene works
Those roles shaped her interest in practical problem solving and family dynamics. Charlene uses a person-centered, strengths-based stance that starts from where a person is today. She helps clients name goals and find steps they can actually use between sessions.
Her background includes cognitive behavioral techniques, dialectical behavior ideas, motivational interviewing, mindfulness practices, and solution-focused methods. Sessions tend to be straightforward and goal oriented. Charlene helps people break problems into manageable pieces, test small changes, and build on what works.
She pays attention to day-to-day routines, relationships, and the ways stress shows up. Common concerns she addresses include anxiety, depression, grief, addictions, parenting challenges, trauma and abuse, relationship and intimacy issues, anger, self-esteem, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and coping with major life changes.
She also focuses on aging and geriatric concerns, caregiver stress, blended family issues, chronic illness and pain, and other family-origin or communication problems. Her aim is for people to leave sessions with clearer next steps and more hope about the road ahead.
Charlene lists 6 ways of working on the entry:
What Charlene works with
The areas below are the ones Charlene selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
Also listed
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
Training and background
| Registers | LMSW, LISW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 37 |
| 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 her approaches work online
Charlene blends client-centered work with cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavior ideas to help people make changes. Client-centered therapy focuses on listening closely and building on a person's strengths to set goals and solve current problems. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) looks at thoughts and behaviors to find small, testable changes that reduce symptoms and improve daily functioning. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) offers skills for managing intense emotions and improving relationships through grounding, distress tolerance, and emotional regulation.Finding the right mix of approaches is collaborative. Charlene will talk with each person about their goals, preferences, and what has or hasn't helped before. Together they try methods that fit the person's life and adjust as progress unfolds.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to increase flexibility. Video sessions let participants use visual cues and longer conversations. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or a quieter check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging make brief check-ins and ongoing coaching more convenient 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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