About Deborah
Dr. Deborah Gioia-Hasick uses client-centered, evidence-informed approaches to help people cope with stress, anxiety, mood shifts, and life transitions. She brings a calm, practical style to sessions and focuses on clear skills people can use between meetings.
Dr. Gioia-Hasick holds LCSW and MD LCSW-C credentials and has practiced for 37 years in California. She began her career working with teens and young adults and spent many years alongside people with serious mental illness.
How Deborah works
That work emphasized symptom management, communication skills, and cognitive strategies to rebuild daily functioning. She also ran groups and multi-family meetings that focused on practical problem solving. After completing a PhD in 2000 she moved into teaching and training.
She has supervised master’s and doctoral students and taught clinical courses that include hands-on practice with cognitive behavioral methods, dialectical behavior approaches, and mindfulness-based stress reduction. Motivational interviewing is a guiding philosophy she uses to help people decide on goals and next steps. She has additional training in sexual health and sex therapy and has done couples counseling through that program.
More recently she has studied climate-focused trauma and resiliency and is interested in supporting people facing climate-related stress. In sessions she combines practical skill-building with explorations of meaning and goals. People who want clear strategies for anxiety, mood concerns, relationship or parenting strain, work identity, grief, or recovery from trauma may find this approach helpful.
Deborah lists 7 ways of working on the entry:
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
- Eating disorders
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Registers | LCSW, MD, LCSW-C |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 37 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | California |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
How targeted approaches translate to online therapy
Dr. Gioia-Hasick often draws on cognitive behavioral therapy to help people identify unhelpful thoughts and try new behaviors. CBT focuses on practical steps and homework that can reduce worry, panic, avoidance, and low mood. Dialectical behavior therapy adds skills for managing intense emotions and improving distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness. Those DBT strategies are useful for relationship stress, emotional ups and downs, and crisis moments. Mindfulness therapy teaches focused attention and breathing practices to reduce stress reactivity and support sleeping and anxiety concerns.Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, past experiences, and what feels doable. Together they decide whether to start with motivational interviewing to set goals, then move into CBT, DBT, or mindfulness-based practice as needed.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video allows face-to-face conversation and guided exercises. Phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited or a quieter check-in is needed. Live chat and messaging suit brief updates, tracking progress, or check-ins between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, parenting, or travel schedules while keeping the focus on skills and recovery.
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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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