About Anna
Anna Murphy is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) based in Iowa. She focuses on helping people who feel overwhelmed by anxiety, stress, grief, mood shifts, or difficult life changes. She meets clients where they are and aims to make the first steps feel manageable.
Anna has nine years of clinical experience in a mix of settings. That includes psychiatric hospitals, schools, community mental health centers, and personal agencies. She has worked with people across the lifespan and with a wide range of concerns, including trauma, substance use, persistent mental illness, and challenges in managing emotions.
Background and approach
Her style is warm and interactive. She treats clients as the experts on their own lives and offers tools and support tailored to each situation. Sessions often include practical skills to manage anxiety, mood, and stress, along with ways to cope after loss or big life shifts.
Anna draws on several approaches to shape therapy. She commonly uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and client-centered techniques. She may also use EMDR or expressive therapy activities when they seem helpful and the client is open to them.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Studio Arts with a Sociology minor from the University of Iowa. She completed a Master of Science in Art Therapy and Counseling from The College of New Rochelle. Her training and varied work history inform a flexible practice that centers practical skills and emotional understanding.
Therapeutic approaches you can use online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them. It focuses on choosing actions that match your values, which can help with anxiety, stress, and life changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and actions and teaches concrete skills to change unhelpful patterns. CBT is often useful for anxiety, depression, and stress management. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a trauma-focused option that works with distressing memories to reduce their hold; it can be helpful for people with past trauma who want to lessen intense reactions.Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, symptoms, and preferences and then try methods that fit. That collaborative process helps decide whether to start with skills work, values-based work, trauma processing, or a mix of approaches.
Online therapy offers different ways to connect. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions can be easier if video is not wanted or bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text-based messaging suit brief check-ins, ongoing coaching, or times when typing is more comfortable. These options make it simpler to fit therapy into a busy life while using methods like ACT, CBT, DBT, or EMDR in a flexible way.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 9 years
- Licensed
- Iowa
- Languages
- English
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