About Joan
Joan Ledford is a licensed professional counselor (LPC) who helps people facing relationship strain, grief, parenting challenges, career transitions, compassion fatigue, stress, anxiety, and self-esteem struggles. She offers steady, practical support for those coping with life changes and intense emotions. Joan writes plainly and listens closely to what matters most to each person.
She uses a client-centered approach that starts with understanding a person's story and priorities. From there she draws on cognitive behavioral techniques, motivational interviewing, and solution-focused strategies to build coping skills and set small, workable goals.
Background and approach
Sessions often include worksheets and journaling when those tools fit the client’s needs. Joan has eight years of counseling experience and has worked with people across a range of concerns. Her background includes helping those experiencing postpartum depression, panic attacks, chronic pain or illness, trauma reactions, and caregiver stress.
She also supports people dealing with isolation, forgiveness, guilt, and life purpose questions. She can adapt ideas for people who want faith-informed care and is willing to integrate Biblical or Christian counseling approaches when requested. Joan aims to treat each person as the expert on their life while offering guidance, structure, and encouragement.
Sessions are offered in English and are provided to people located in Michigan. Joan focuses on practical steps in therapy so clients can try new ways of coping between sessions and track progress over time.
How Joan's Approaches Work Online
Joan often uses Client-Centered Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in sessions. Client-Centered Therapy focuses on understanding the person’s perspective and building a trusting, nonjudgmental conversation. It helps when someone needs time to tell their story and be heard. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at thoughts and behaviors that keep problems going and teaches practical skills to shift patterns, which is useful for anxiety, panic, and mood concerns.Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. Joan will talk with the client about goals, try methods that fit those goals, and adjust techniques as needed. That collaboration helps identify which tools are most helpful for the person’s situation and preferences.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues, phone sessions can work when bandwidth is limited or for a quick check-in, chat is useful for brief focused exchanges, and text messaging supports ongoing check-ins and journaling between appointments. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life and to keep momentum between sessions.
Questions people ask
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What this counselor works with
Most often
- Relationship issues
- Grief
- Parenting issues
Also listed
- Anger management
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 8 years
- Licensed
- Michigan
- Languages
- English