About Deborah
Deborah Thoennes offers straightforward support for people feeling overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, depression, or life changes. She focuses on building practical skills and clear goals so people can move forward. Deborah is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) practicing in Wisconsin with 15 years of experience.
She listens without judgment and adapts conversations to each person's situation. Deborah draws on client-centered work to center the person's perspective and on cognitive behavioral methods to identify patterns that get in the way.
Background and approach
She uses emotion-focused and mindfulness practices when feelings need careful attention. Sessions are collaborative and paced to the client's comfort. Deborah helps people break problems into small steps, try new behaviors, and notice what works.
She also supports those facing grief, burnout, caregiving strain, chronic health concerns, and difficulties with focus or motivation. Her background includes many years working with adults on self-esteem, relationship challenges, and recovery from trauma and abuse. She pays attention to how attachment, loss, and past experiences affect current choices and emotions.
People who choose Deborah usually want clear feedback, practical tools, and a calm space to sort through hard decisions. She frames therapy as problem-solving plus emotional reflection. If you prefer a direct, compassionate approach, she may be a good fit.
Approaches that translate to online care
Client-centered work puts the person's experience first and emphasizes listening and empathy. In online sessions this means the therapist follows the client's lead, reflects what matters most, and shapes the pace to match the person's needs. It is useful for people needing acceptance and clear problem framing.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing new behaviors. Online CBT often uses brief exercises, homework between sessions, and practical tools to reduce anxiety, lift mood, or change repetitive patterns.
Emotionally-Focused Therapy helps people name and process intense feelings and improve emotional connection to their own needs. In remote sessions this can involve guided conversations and exercises that help someone notice patterns and respond to emotions differently.
Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work. The therapist and client decide together which methods fit best based on goals, personal style, and what feels helpful in early sessions. That collaborative process helps tailor tools and pacing to each person's situation.
Online therapy offers flexibility for busy schedules and different communication preferences. Video calls allow face-to-face interaction, phone sessions need less bandwidth, live chat can suit quick check-ins, and text-based messaging supports shorter reflections over time. These options make it easier to keep regular contact and try techniques between sessions.
Questions people ask
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What this counselor works with
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 15 years
- Licensed
- Wisconsin
- Languages
- English