About Donna
Donna Coakley practices a client-centered style that focuses on listening and tailoring care to each person's needs. She combines approaches like cognitive behavioral methods, mindfulness, and trauma-focused tools to help people make practical change. Donna brings 26 years of experience to her work in the District of Columbia and speaks English.
Her sessions are warm and interactive. She aims to treat people with respect and compassion while avoiding stigmatizing labels.
How Donna works
Conversations focus on real problems and real steps you can try between sessions. Donna helps people address stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, sleep problems, and parenting strain. She also supports recovery from addictions and addresses intimacy-related and relationship concerns.
Additional focus areas include communication problems, domestic violence, hoarding, and process addictions such as gambling or pornography. For trauma-related difficulties she uses techniques that include eye movement desensitization and reprocessing and mindfulness exercises to reduce distress and build coping skills. Cognitive behavioral methods are used to identify unhelpful thought patterns and try new behavior.
Dialectical behavior therapy skills may be added to help regulate emotions and improve relationships. Her background includes work with first responders and veteran and armed forces issues, along with experience related to HIV/AIDS and substance use. Donna tailors treatment plans to each person's situation and moves at a pace that fits the person's goals and comfort level.
Donna lists 8 ways of working on the entry:
What Donna works with
The areas below are the ones Donna selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
Also listed
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Communication problems
- Depression
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Family conflicts
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Intimacy-related issues
- Jealousy
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
Training and background
| Registers | MD, LCPC, LPC |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 26 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | District of Columbia |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Approach-driven online care that fits your life
Donna uses client-centered therapy to place your concerns and goals at the center of each session, focusing on listening, empathy, and collaboration to shape the work. Cognitive behavioral therapy is used to identify unhelpful thoughts and test new behaviors between sessions to reduce anxiety and depression. Dialectical behavior therapy offers concrete skills for managing strong emotions and improving communication in tense moments.Choosing an approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk through your goals and preferences and together decide which methods to try first, adjusting as you make progress or discover what feels most helpful.
Online therapy options include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when visual cues matter. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can be easier to schedule during a work break. Live chat and text messaging let people check in between appointments or have shorter, focused conversations when that better fits a day. These formats give flexibility to fit therapy into a busy life while keeping the focus on skill building and steady 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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