About Laura
Laura Phen is a licensed professional counselor with 25 years of experience. She focuses on helping people manage anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship and intimacy concerns. Her style is warm and direct, aimed at making conversations feel straightforward and useful.
She creates an open space where people can speak honestly about what is hard. Sessions are meant to be steady and practical. Laura listens first, then helps set small, achievable steps to try between meetings.
Background and approach
Her work often addresses stress, grief, sleep trouble, anger, and issues with self-esteem. She also supports people facing compassion fatigue, career questions, ADHD, and complex losses. When needed she brings in strategies for managing mood shifts related to bipolar disorder and seasonal affective changes.
Laura draws on client-centered methods to follow each person's pace. She also uses cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavior techniques to teach concrete skills for thinking and reacting differently. Mindfulness practices are layered in to help with grounding and stress relief.
Clients can expect a collaborative approach that balances listening with practical tools. Laura helps people name patterns, try experiments in daily life, and adjust plans as progress happens. This approach is aimed at steady, usable change rather than quick fixes.
How online approaches and skills work together
Client-Centered Therapy invites the therapist to follow the person's lead, offering space to talk and reflecting what is most important in the moment. It helps people feel heard and figure out what they want to try next. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on practical steps to change patterns of thinking and behavior, useful for anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and stress. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, teaches concrete skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and clearer communication, which can help with intense feelings and relationship strain.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Laura will collaborate with each person to match methods to goals and preferences. That means trying an approach, checking how it feels, and adjusting the plan together so it fits real life.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy more flexible. Video calls are useful for face-to-face conversation and skill practice. Phone sessions can work when bandwidth is limited or a quieter check-in is needed. Live chat and text messaging are helpful for brief check-ins, shorter reflections, or fitting support into a busy day. These options let people fit care into work, caregiving, or travel schedules while using the therapeutic methods described above.
Questions people ask
What kinds of concerns does she address?
What is her therapy style like?
How much experience does the therapist have?
What are her credentials and where is she based?
Which languages are sessions offered in?
Can people outside the U.S. work with her?
What session formats are available?
How does payment and getting started work?
What this therapist works with
Most often
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
- Intimacy-related issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Depression
- Emptiness
- First responder issues
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Stress, Anxiety
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- Washington, Oregon, Illinois, Utah, South Dakota, Arizona
- Languages
- English
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