About Cristy
Cristy Bixler, LCSW, offers support for people facing stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, trauma, and low self-esteem. She helps clients who struggle with motivation, sleeping or eating concerns, relationship and intimacy issues, and the strain of caregiving. Cristy works with a wide range of life challenges, including career changes, coping with loss, and compassion fatigue.
She uses a person-centered approach that starts by listening. Sessions focus on the client's strengths and on practical steps that fit daily life.
Background and approach
Cristy draws on cognitive behavioral techniques to spot unhelpful thinking and on dialectical skills to manage intense emotions. Motivational interviewing is a common part of her work when someone wants to make a change but feels stuck. She helps people clarify what matters most and build gradual, realistic goals.
Conversations aim to be direct, respectful, and tailored to each person’s needs. Cristy has seven years of clinical experience and holds an Illinois Licensed Clinical Social Worker credential. That experience includes helping people with complex histories such as trauma, addictions, family of origin concerns, and attachment-related issues.
She also supports people working through separation, blended family challenges, and caregiver stress. Sessions cover both immediate coping skills and longer-term patterns that affect daily life. The focus is on small, achievable steps that add up to real change.
Cristy encourages clients to name their goals and to move at a pace that feels doable for them.
How Cristy’s Approaches Work Online
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying and changing thoughts and behaviors that keep problems going. It is useful for anxiety, depression, sleep or eating issues, and for building concrete coping skills.Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes listening and working from each person’s goals and strengths. This approach helps people feel heard while they set practical steps toward change. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) adds skills for tolerating strong emotions and improving communication when feelings run high.
Finding the right mix of approaches is a collaborative process. Cristy will talk with each person about goals and preferences, and then try techniques that fit their situation. The plan can shift over time based on what helps most.
Online sessions are available by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to give flexible options. Video sessions work well for deeper conversations and skills practice. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or for quick check-ins. Live chat and text messaging can fit brief updates, coaching-style support, or follow-up between longer sessions. These formats make it easier to fit therapy around work, caregiving, or travel.
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What this therapist works with
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating disorders
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 7 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English
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