About Margaret
Margaret Couch is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a long career helping people who feel overwhelmed by stress and anxiety. She brings simple, practical guidance and steady support for issues like depression, bipolar concerns, ADHD, addiction, and relationship strain. Margaret works to understand each person's life before suggesting next steps.
She has 41 years of experience in mental health and also holds a Master of Education. That background shaped her straightforward approach to care.
Background and approach
Sessions focus on the person, not just a diagnosis. Margaret emphasizes respect for each person's choices and goals. She listens first, then helps people set realistic steps they can try between sessions.
Typical work involves skills for coping, improving sleep and eating patterns, managing mood swings, and handling life transitions. Her methods include client-centered work and cognitive behavioral techniques to identify unhelpful thoughts and try small behavior changes. She also draws on dialectical behavior strategies and emotionally-focused ideas when relationships and intense feelings are central concerns.
Margaret supports people dealing with grief, abandonment issues, caregiver stress, body image struggles, and career transitions. She also has experience with autism spectrum related concerns, blended family issues, and chronic illness adjustments. Sessions are offered in English from Illinois and she can work with international clients.
Margaret aims to partner with people who want clear tools and compassionate conversation as they make changes in daily life.
Approaches that fit life online
Client-centered work focuses on the person's needs and values. It involves listening closely and shaping the pace and goals to what feels manageable, which helps when stress and anxiety make decision-making hard.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at thoughts, feelings, and actions and teaches practical tools to change patterns that increase worry or low mood. It is useful for anxiety, sleep and eating problems, and coping with life changes.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, DBT, emphasizes emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and clearer communication. These skills can help with intense moods, anger, and relationship strain.
Finding the right approach is collaborative. The therapist will talk with the client about symptoms, goals, and preferences, then suggest methods to try. That plan can shift over time as needs change.
Online therapy offers flexible ways to meet. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation for teaching skills and working through emotions. Phone sessions work when bandwidth is low or a camera is not convenient. Live chat and text-based messaging suit shorter check-ins, quick coaching, or follow-up between sessions. These options make regular work on anxiety and daily coping easier to fit into a busy life.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Parenting issues
- Bipolar disorder
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 41 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English
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