About Connie
Connie Toavs is a licensed clinical social worker who helps people facing anxiety, depression, grief, trauma, and relationship challenges. She keeps sessions straightforward and calm so people can talk through what feels most urgent. Connie brings 10 years of experience and clinical focus to each conversation.
Her background includes psychology, gerontology, and social work, and she draws on that mix when addressing health, aging, and life transitions. Sessions often begin by looking at recurring patterns from early relationships and current stresses.
How Connie works
Connie explains how those patterns affect emotions and the body, then works with clients to try new ways of responding. She uses attachment-based and client-centered ideas to build trust and collaboration in the room. Cognitive behavioral strategies are offered to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors.
Emotion-focused and Gottman-informed methods are used when relationship connection and communication are central concerns. Connie also pays attention to medical and caregiving contexts, chronic illness, hospice and end-of-life issues, and the specific stresses caregivers face. She respects diverse sexual practices and LGBTQ identities, including kink and BDSM concerns, and helps people talk about intimacy or commitment worries without judgment.
Practical skills, short experiments between sessions, and life-review conversations are common parts of the work. Sessions can address career stress, compassion fatigue, isolation, and questions about life purpose as well as mood disorders and addiction-related concerns. The goal is clearer insight and manageable steps toward change.
Connie lists 10 ways of working on the entry:
What Connie works with
The areas below are the ones Connie selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
Also listed
- Addictions
- Aging and geriatric issues
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Traumatic brain injury
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Registers | LCSW, LICSW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 10 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Minnesota |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
How Connie’s approaches work online
Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on patterns that formed in early relationships and how they show up now. In online sessions this can look like talking through difficult interactions and building new ways of relating to others and to oneself. Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes the person’s experience and aims to make the therapist responsive and non-judgmental. That approach helps when someone needs a steady, listening presence to clarify goals and feelings. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and actions and tests practical experiments to shift habits and mood. Finding the right approach is part of the work. Connie will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what feels most useful. Together they decide which methods to try and adjust as progress is made, so the plan fits the client rather than the other way around. Online formats offer flexibility for different needs. Video calls let people use visual cues during deeper conversations. Phone sessions can be a simpler option when bandwidth is limited or a quieter setup is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging are useful for brief check-ins, tracking progress, or working between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy lives and to continue steady work on stress, relationships, grief, and health-related concerns.Start online instead of waiting
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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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