About Deborah
Deborah Beard welcomes people who are feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or worn down by stress, anxiety, depression, grief, or relationship struggles. She speaks plainly and offers steady support for practical problems like sleep, eating, parenting strain, and career concerns. Deborah is identified as an Illinois Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC) with three decades of experience.
Her background includes a Master of Science in Family Therapy from Friends University and prior roles in human resources and higher education.
How Deborah works
Those experiences shape a practical style that blends life skills with counseling. Sessions often focus on goals that matter to the person in front of her, such as improving communication, managing mood swings, or coping with chronic illness. Deborah uses a mix of approaches to match each person’s needs.
She draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help people notice patterns and try new behaviors. Attachment-based ideas inform work around trust, closeness, and abandonment concerns. Her approach is warm and strengths-based.
Deborah helps people identify what is already working and build small, doable steps toward change. She also integrates techniques from Dialectical Behavior Therapy when emotion regulation or intense reactions are a focus. People come for help with addiction, intimacy issues, trauma and abuse recovery, body image and eating concerns, caregiver stress, and aging-related questions.
Deborah accepts international clients and offers sessions in English from her Illinois practice.
Deborah lists 15 ways of working on the entry:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Gottman Method
- Imago Relationship Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Systemic Therapy
What Deborah works with
The areas below are the ones Deborah selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Trichotillomania
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LCPC |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 30 |
| 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 Deborah’s Approaches Work Online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and commit to actions that match their values. It is useful for anxiety, depression, and life transitions where someone wants clearer direction. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying thinking patterns and testing new behaviors to reduce symptoms like worry, low mood, or sleep problems. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at patterns of closeness and trust to address abandonment, communication problems, and intimacy issues.Choosing which approach to use is a collaborative process. The therapist will listen to a person’s goals, try a method, and adjust as needed. Sessions often combine techniques so the work fits the client’s needs and preferences rather than following a single fixed plan.
Online therapy offers flexible ways to meet. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation for longer sessions. Phone sessions are an option when bandwidth or being on camera is not ideal. Live chat or text-based messaging works well for short check-ins, coaching-style exchanges, or people who prefer writing. These formats make it easier to fit counseling into work, caregiving, or travel schedules while maintaining consistent progress.
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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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