About Amanda
Amanda Halawa-Mahdi is a licensed clinical social worker in Illinois with 23 years of experience. She focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, and challenges at work. Her style aims to build confidence and motivation so clients can take practical steps forward.
She uses straightforward conversation and goal-focused work. Sessions often look at patterns that keep someone stuck and then try different ways to change them. Amanda draws on techniques from cognitive behavioral work and client-centered conversation to help people notice thoughts and shift behaviors.
Background and approach
Her background includes long experience supporting people facing trauma, motivation struggles, and family conflict. She also trained as a professional coach through the Co-Active Training Institute and brings coaching tools for decision making and leadership development. That coaching lens is woven into therapeutic conversations when clients want clearer goals or more direction.
Amanda pays attention to issues like body image, caregiver stress, guilt and shame, isolation, and finding life purpose. She also addresses communication problems and workplace concerns in practical ways that fit daily life. She emphasizes fairness and actively examines diversity and bias in sessions.
Her approach is collaborative. Amanda treats the person as the expert on their life and helps them try out new responses. She focuses on small, doable steps so progress feels real and manageable.
Therapeutic approaches and online options that fit your life
Amanda uses client-centered work to listen first and follow the priorities you bring. This approach focuses on empathy and understanding, helping people feel heard as they name what matters most. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps identify unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and replaces them with small practical experiments to reduce anxiety and improve mood.Finding the right approach is part of the work together. She will collaborate with you to choose methods that match your goals, needs, and preferences. That might mean mixing listening-based client-centered work with CBT tasks or adding coaching-style questions to clarify decisions and next steps.
Online therapy offers flexibility for busy lives. Video calls let you read facial cues and have a session that feels most like an office visit. Phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited or when being off-camera helps you focus. Live chat and text-based messaging are useful for brief check-ins, homework support, or when you want shorter, more frequent contact. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a workday, a caregiving schedule, or other responsibilities while still working toward clear goals.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Self esteem
Also listed
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 23 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English
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