About Debbie
Debbie Chirikos is a licensed clinical social worker with 40 years of experience who approaches therapy with curiosity and steady commitment. She focuses on helping people manage stress and anxiety and navigate the day-to-day problems that get in the way of living well. She uses practical, down-to-earth methods to help clients notice patterns and try different ways to respond.
Debbie draws on attachment-based ideas to clarify relationship patterns and on cognitive behavioral techniques to shift unhelpful thoughts and behaviors.
Background and approach
Mindfulness and motivational interviewing also appear in her work to help people build small, sustainable changes. Debbie aims to be fully present in sessions and listens closely to what matters to each person. She invites clients to do the hard work of self-reflection while offering steady guidance and nonjudgmental feedback.
Humor and patience are tools she uses when appropriate to ease difficult moments. Her background includes a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Clinical Social Work from Colorado universities and decades of practice across several states. Those years have given her experience with grief, trauma and abuse, parenting concerns, caregiver stress, and relationship difficulties among other issues.
People who want to address self-defeating patterns, strengthen coping with life changes, or reduce anxiety often find collaborative support with her. Debbie believes most people already hold the seeds of their own solutions and that a thoughtful partnership can help those seeds grow.
How therapeutic approaches translate to online work
Attachment-based work focuses on how early relationships shape current connections and patterns. In online sessions this can help people recognize why they react a certain way in relationships and practice new responses within a supportive conversation.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, is about identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing new behaviors. It often includes short exercises and homework that transfer well to video or phone sessions, helping with anxiety, sleeping problems, and low mood.
Finding the right approach is part of the process and will be decided together. The therapist will listen to goals and preferences and then suggest which methods to try first, adjusting as needed based on what helps most.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is good for full conversations and visual cues. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text work well for brief check-ins, step-by-step coaching, or when someone prefers not to be on camera. These options make scheduling more flexible and let people fit therapy into busy lives.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Parenting issues
Also listed
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Attachment issues
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 40 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English
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