About Tonya
Tonya Wacker is a licensed professional counselor with 14 years of clinical experience. She practices in Tennessee as an LPC and LPCC and focuses on helping people who feel stuck by stress, anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, and questions about identity. Tonya uses straightforward talk and practical tools to help clients find clearer direction and make changes that matter.
Her style is warm and collaborative. She centers each session on the person in front of her and tailors methods to their needs.
How Tonya works
Tonya often blends client-centered approaches with cognitive behavioral techniques and mindfulness to help people notice patterns and try new responses. She also draws on dialectical skills and existential ideas to address deep questions about purpose and meaning. Clients can expect down-to-earth conversation and concrete strategies.
Sessions may include skills practice, thought tracking, and guided reflection. Tonya helps people manage mood symptoms, relationship friction, addictive patterns, and transitions such as divorce or career change. She pays particular attention to sexual identity and LGBT concerns, intimacy and kink-affirming topics, and issues that follow trauma or grief.
Additional focus areas include ADHD, compassion fatigue, and stressors faced by first responders. Tonya welcomes international clients and offers multiple online formats. She aims to create a plan that fits each person’s life and goals, with flexibility in how therapy is scheduled and delivered.
Tonya lists 9 ways of working on the entry:
What Tonya works with
The areas below are the ones Tonya selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- LGBT
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Commitment issues
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- HIV / AIDS
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Multicultural concerns
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-love
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
Training and background
| Registers | LPC, LPCC |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 14 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Tennessee |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Therapeutic approaches and online care that fit your life
Tonya commonly draws on client-centered work and cognitive behavioral therapy to support people online. Client-centered therapy focuses on listening closely and building a respectful, accepting relationship so clients can explore their goals and values. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps identify unhelpful thought and behavior patterns and then practices small changes to reduce distress and improve daily functioning.She also uses dialectical behavior therapy skills when emotion regulation and distress tolerance are key goals. DBT techniques teach concrete skills for managing intense emotions, improving relationships, and coping with overwhelming moments. These approaches are chosen to match the person and the problem, not applied the same way for everyone.
Finding the right mix is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with each person about symptoms, goals, and preferences and together decide which methods to try first. That plan can change over time based on what helps most, with regular check-ins about progress.
Online options include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging, which make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life. Video sessions are useful for deeper conversation and visual cues, phone can be a lower-bandwidth option, and messaging or live chat work well for brief check-ins, homework support, or when a shorter interaction is needed. These choices give flexibility so therapy can continue across different schedules and locations.
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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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