About Lisa
Lisa Tomala is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with 20 years of experience helping people manage anxiety, depression, trauma, and grief. She frames sessions in clear, direct language and aims to make therapy approachable for someone who feels overwhelmed. Her manner is steady and practical, focused on next steps rather than jargon.
She draws on a mix of methods to meet each person where they are. Lisa pays attention to how early life shapes current reactions and looks for manageable ways to change unhelpful patterns.
Background and approach
She works at a client’s pace and emphasizes small, achievable shifts that add up over time. Lisa has worked with adults facing substance concerns, life transitions, and post-traumatic stress in clinical settings. She also supports people coping with compassion fatigue, relationship and intimacy worries, sleep problems, ADHD, and chronic illness.
Her background includes both community mental health and clinical work with service members and civilians. For clients who want spiritual context, she can integrate Thomistic philosophical principles into conversations when requested. Her sessions are intended to be a judgement-free space for honest talk, problem solving, and building new meaning after loss or disruption.
Outside of work she enjoys painting, hiking, and time with family and an Australian Cattle Dog. That balance informs a practical, life-focused approach in sessions that aims to help people return to everyday functioning with more ease.
How Lisa Uses Practical Therapies Online
Lisa often combines cognitive-behavioral ideas with solution-focused techniques to help people change unhelpful thoughts and build practical habits. Cognitive-behavioral strategies break problems into small steps and teach skills for anxiety, sleep, and mood. Solution-focused work targets specific goals and gives quick tools to try between sessions.She also draws on psychodynamic ideas to look at how early relationships shape reactions today. That can help make sense of recurring patterns in relationships, attachment, or avoidance, and guide longer-term change. These approaches are explained in plain terms and adjusted to each person’s situation.
Finding the right mix is a team effort. The therapist will work collaboratively to choose strategies that fit a client's goals, needs, and pace. Treatment plans are reviewed and adjusted as progress is made so the approach evolves with the client.
Online sessions offer flexibility for busy schedules and different needs. Video calls work well for in-depth conversation, phone sessions can be helpful when bandwidth is limited, live chat suits quick check-ins, and text-based messaging supports ongoing encouragement and short updates. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, or medical routines.
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Trauma and abuse
- Grief
- Bipolar disorder
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed
- Virginia
- Languages
- English
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