About Ellen
Ellen Thrasher is a licensed clinical social worker with 30 years of experience in Hawaii. She focuses on stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, grief, anger, and depression. Ellen centers the person in the room and treats each story as unique.
She aims to make the first steps toward change feel manageable and clear. Ellen uses straightforward methods that help people name what is happening and try small changes. She draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to look at thoughts and behaviors that keep problems going.
Background and approach
Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills are used to teach emotion regulation and distress tolerance. Trauma-Focused Therapy helps people process painful past events when they’re ready. Sessions are conversational and practical.
Ellen listens for strengths and patterns and suggests tools that can be practiced between meetings. She also helps people sort through relationship wounds, attachment concerns, panic attacks, and workplace stress. Ellen has supported people dealing with chronic illness, financial strain, and forgiveness work.
She works with issues like narcissistic relationships, social anxiety, and self-love challenges. Her approach balances gentle challenge with clear, usable strategies. People who meet with Ellen can expect calm guidance and step-by-step problem solving.
She encourages small, steady progress rather than quick fixes. Her work is rooted in decades of practice and a focus on what helps each person move forward.
Therapeutic approaches and online care
Ellen uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people spot unhelpful thoughts and try different behaviors. CBT focuses on the link between thinking and feeling and is often used for anxiety, panic, and depression. She also offers Trauma-Focused Therapy to help people process painful memories when they are ready; this approach centers on understanding how past events affect present reactions and safety.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. Ellen will talk with each person about goals, what feels most useful, and any limits around time or energy. Together they decide which methods to try first and adjust the plan as progress is made.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different needs. Video is useful for full sessions and visual cues, phone can be simpler with limited bandwidth, and messaging lets people check in between meetings. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule and try different formats to see what works best.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- Hawaii
- Languages
- English
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