About Deborah
Dr. Deborah Gioia-Hasick uses a client-centered approach combined with practical therapies to help people manage anxiety and stress. She brings a calm, steady presence and 37 years of clinical experience to sessions.
Her style is straightforward and goal-focused while staying responsive to each person's needs. Early in her career she worked extensively with teens and young adults, including many years supporting young people with serious mental illness and their family supports.
Background and approach
That work involved running groups, teaching symptom-management skills, and rebuilding communication and cognitive abilities. She also completed focused training in sexual health and sex therapy work and has provided couples counseling through that program. Since finishing her PhD in 2000 she has taught at the Master's and doctoral level and led clinical courses that include hands-on training in evidence-based methods.
Her teaching emphasizes practical skill building, such as cognitive behavioral techniques, dialectical behavior strategies, and mindfulness practices. Motivational interviewing is a guiding philosophy for her clinical work, used to help people find the motivation to try targeted strategies. She also offers mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques that she has taught in groups and to students.
More recently she has focused on climate-related trauma and resiliency and welcomes conversations about how environmental stressors affect mood and daily life. Dr. Gioia-Hasick practices in California and conducts sessions in English.
Approaches for online anxiety and stress support
Dr. Gioia-Hasick uses a mix of practical approaches that translate well to online work. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing new behaviors to reduce anxiety and mood symptoms. It often involves short exercises and skill practice between sessions. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) offers concrete skills for managing intense emotions and improving interpersonal effectiveness, with clear steps and skills that can be taught during sessions or reviewed in messages.She favors a client-centered stance and uses motivational interviewing to help people find reasons to try targeted strategies. Deciding on the right approach is a collaborative process; the therapist and client review goals, try techniques, and adjust the plan together based on what feels most helpful.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is useful for teaching exercises and reading nonverbal cues. Phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited or for shorter check-ins. Live chat and text messaging allow for quick coaching, skill reminders, and ongoing support between longer sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life and to keep working on skills between meetings.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Eating disorders
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 37 years
- Licensed
- Maryland, California
- Languages
- English
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