About Dana
Dana Palermo is a licensed clinician in Illinois with 20 years of professional experience as an LCPC. She helps people facing stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, and difficulties with focus or motivation. Her approach is practical and respectful, aimed at helping people take the steps they need to feel more capable and confident.
She listens carefully and adapts conversations to each person's situation. Sessions are shaped around specific needs like concentration, memory, coping with life changes, or managing ADHD-related challenges.
Background and approach
Dana emphasizes straightforward strategies that can be used between meetings to build momentum. Dana also has experience with adoption and foster care issues, autism and Asperger syndrome, caregiver stress, chronic health conditions, and eating or dissociation concerns. She pays attention to how multiple problems can interact and affect daily life, and she works to untangle those links so progress is manageable.
The tone in sessions is supportive and sensitive. Dana aims to help people find practical next steps rather than only talking about problems. She encourages small, achievable changes that add up over time.
People who want a calm, steady guide for life transitions or ongoing stress may find her approach helpful. She frames therapy as collaborative work toward clearer goals and more effective coping skills.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Evidence-based techniques are used in a straightforward way to address current problems and build skills. One common approach focuses on skill-building for managing anxiety and stress by teaching simple routines, breathing or attention exercises, and step-by-step plans to face difficult situations. This helps people reduce overwhelm and regain control of daily tasks.Another practical approach concentrates on improving attention and motivation. It uses structured tasks, short goal-setting, and ways to break work into smaller steps so concentration improves and progress feels possible. This is useful for people dealing with ADHD-related struggles or chronic difficulties finishing tasks.
Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t worked before. Together they decide which methods to try and adjust the plan as needed based on real-world results.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different needs. Video works well for deeper conversations and visual cues. Phone can be easier when bandwidth is limited or for quick check-ins. Live chat and text messaging let people send short updates, ask questions between sessions, or have brief check-ins when a longer appointment won't fit. These options make therapy more flexible and easier to fit into a busy life.
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What this counselor works with
Most often
Also listed
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Antisocial personality
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Blended family issues
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Eating and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- First responder issues
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trichotillomania
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English