About Portia
Portia Freeman is an AASW social worker with eight years' experience supporting people facing stress, anxiety, depression and trauma. She speaks plainly, listens closely and helps clients find practical steps to feel steadier day to day. Portia tailors conversations to what the person needs right now rather than using a one-size-fits-all plan.
Portia draws on approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and EMDR to help people work through distressing memories, anxious patterns and low mood.
Background and approach
Sessions focus on skills you can practise between meetings - for example breathing and grounding, spotting unhelpful thinking, and testing small behavioural changes. Her work also includes supporting people with ADHD and autism, and issues linked to family change, adoption and grief.
She pays attention to strengths and to what is already working in a person's life, so therapy builds on familiar resources as well as introducing new strategies. Portia aims to create calm structure in sessions. That might mean a short check-in, a practical exercise, and a plan for the week.
Sessions can include discussion, simple skills practice and tailored homework to keep progress moving forward. People come to Portia when coping feels thin or memories feel overwhelming. She helps break problems into small, manageable steps and stays focused on what you want to change.
The emphasis is on clear, practical work that people can use in everyday life.
How therapy approaches translate to online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them, and it focuses on values-based action to build a meaningful life. It is useful for anxiety, stress and low mood because it emphasises small, purposeful steps.Cognitive Behavioural Therapy looks at the link between thoughts, feelings and behaviour and offers practical skills to test and change unhelpful patterns. It suits people wanting structured tools for anxiety, depression and everyday stressors.
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing is a trauma-focused approach that works with distressing memories and associated sensations. When appropriate, EMDR can help reduce the intensity of painful recollections and make them easier to manage in daily life.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. Portia will discuss options and adapt methods to fit the person's goals, needs and preferences. That means she may use one method at first and add others later, depending on how the work progresses.
Online sessions offer flexibility for busy days and different needs. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and exercises, phone sessions are helpful when bandwidth is limited, and live chat or text-based messaging suit shorter check-ins or people who prefer written communication. These formats make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving and everyday routines while keeping the focus on practical strategies and steady progress.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Communication problems
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 8 years
- Licensed
- Languages
- English
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