About Alana
Alana Russell is an AASW social worker with seven years' experience supporting people through stress, anxiety, trauma and related concerns. She uses practical, evidence-based techniques to help people manage symptoms and rebuild daily life. Alana writes plainly and listens closely, so people feel understood and noticed from the first conversation.
Alana's background includes work with first responders, veterans and frontline professionals. She has both professional and personal insight into the pressures those roles bring.
Background and approach
That perspective helps her recognise how work demands, shift patterns and duty-related events can affect mood, sleep and relationships. In sessions she focuses on trauma-informed care, strengths and solution-based work. Cognitive behavioural therapy techniques are a core part of how she helps people change unhelpful thoughts and behaviours.
She also supports people dealing with compassion fatigue, burnout and career stress. Alana is experienced with a broad range of life transitions and emotional difficulties. These include postpartum depression, panic attacks, grief, attachment issues and workplace problems.
She aims to make therapy practical, so people can use tools between sessions and see steady progress. Her style is collaborative and down-to-earth. Alana treats people as experts in their own lives and helps them set clear, manageable goals.
If someone wants direct strategies and steady support for anxiety, trauma or work-related strain, she offers a straightforward approach to get started.
How evidence-based techniques translate to online therapy
Alana commonly uses cognitive behavioural techniques to identify and shift unhelpful thinking patterns and behaviours. This approach is practical and task-focused, which suits video or phone sessions where homework and skill practice are agreed on between sessions.She also applies trauma-informed care, which means noticing how past events affect current reactions and pacing work to avoid overwhelm. That method helps when addressing post-traumatic stress, panic or compassion fatigue and can be adapted to live chat or messaging for gentler check-ins.
Finding the right approach is a shared process. The therapist will work with the client to decide which techniques fit their goals and comfort levels. That might mean starting with shorter phone check-ins, trying CBT exercises over video, or using messages for quick skill coaching between sessions.
Online formats offer practical benefits. Video calls let people work face-to-face without travel, phone sessions need less bandwidth, live chat is useful for shorter check-ins, and text messaging supports ongoing skill practice. These options make it easier to fit therapy around shift work, parenting and busy schedules while keeping treatment consistent and flexible.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Career difficulties
Also listed
- Experience
- 7 years
- Licensed
- Languages
- English
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