About Alisa
Alisa Cates, LCPC, uses a person-centered way of working to help people feel heard and understood. She focuses on building a strong working relationship first and then addresses the issues that bring someone to therapy. Her approach aims to reduce stress and anxiety and make it easier to talk about hard things.
She has been a licensed clinical professional counselor in Illinois since 2013, bringing 13 years of experience across many settings.
Background and approach
That background includes community mental health, inpatient hospitalization, intensive outpatient programs, corrections, and independent practice. These roles informed her work with depression, mood disorders, grief, and life transitions. In sessions she combines client-centered methods with practical tools from cognitive behavioral therapy and solution-focused techniques.
Motivational interviewing is used to support people who want change but feel stuck. The goal is to create small, manageable steps rather than big, overwhelming plans. Alisa also addresses relationship and family issues, anger, self-esteem, career concerns, and addictions.
She pays attention to stress from parenting, postpartum changes, and age-related concerns. People who struggle with impulse control, isolation, or finding purpose can work on clearer goals together. Her style is straightforward and respectful.
She listens first, then works with each person to pick strategies that fit their life. Sessions aim to be practical so the skills can be used between meetings.
Approaches you can use online
Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and understanding first. The therapist follows the person's lead and helps them identify the goals that matter most. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and actions and teaches practical tools to shift unhelpful patterns. Emotionally focused ideas help people notice and name emotions and use that awareness to improve how they connect and respond to others.Finding the right approach is part of the work together. Alisa will collaborate with each person to pick methods that match their goals, needs, and comfort level. She aims to try strategies in a flexible way and adjust them based on what is helpful in real life.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make scheduling easier. Video is useful for longer therapy work and visual connection, phone works well when bandwidth is limited or for a shorter check-in, and live chat or messaging can help with quick updates or ongoing support between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule and to keep working on goals from different locations.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Parenting issues
- Anger management
Also listed
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Impulsivity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 13 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English
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