About Deborah
Deborah (Debbie) Connery is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with 33 years of experience helping adults manage stress and anxiety. She focuses on practical steps that make daily life easier. Debbie aims to create a calm, respectful space where people can feel heard and understood.
She works with many common concerns including depression, grief, mood disorders, panic, obsessive thoughts, and the strain of life changes. She also addresses anger, self-esteem, career questions, relationship and family stress, and aging-related issues.
Background and approach
Her work includes support for people facing hospice and end-of-life decisions and those coping with isolation or intellectual disability. Debbie uses approaches that fit each person's needs rather than a single method.
She draws on client-centered therapy to follow each person's pace, cognitive behavioral therapy to spot and shift unhelpful thinking, motivational interviewing to build momentum for change, and solution-focused ideas to set clear, achievable goals. Trauma-focused methods are used when past events are causing current problems. Sessions emphasize listening first, then practical tools and small experiments to test what helps.
Conversations aim to identify strengths and uncover sources of hope. Homework or short exercises may be suggested to practice new skills between meetings. Debbie practices from Illinois and offers sessions in English.
Her goal is to partner with people who want to make steady, manageable changes and regain more control over day-to-day life.
How therapy approaches translate to online care
Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and following the person's pace. In practice that means conversations that begin where the person is and let them guide priorities, which works well over video or messaging. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, looks at thoughts and behaviors and uses small experiments and homework to change patterns. CBT translates easily to online formats because tools and worksheets can be shared and practiced between sessions.Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist and client will try different strategies and agree on goals together. Adjustments are common - methods are shaped to match the client's needs, preferences, and how they respond to online formats.
Online sessions offer practical flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and use visual cues. Phone sessions can be simpler when video is not needed or bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text-based messaging let people check in outside a standard appointment and work well for brief questions, progress notes, or steady support between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life and to continue care when schedules or locations change.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Social anxiety and phobia
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 33 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English
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