About Sara
Sara Nielsen is a licensed counselor with nearly two decades of clinical experience. She holds LCMHC and LCPC credentials and practices in Alabama. She works with people facing anxiety, stress, depression, trauma, eating concerns, and other life challenges.
Sara uses a collaborative, down-to-earth style in sessions. She listens first, then helps people set clear, practical goals. She emphasizes skills that can be practiced between sessions and adjusts the pace to fit each person.
Background and approach
Her approach blends cognitive behavioral techniques with acceptance and commitment ideas. Mindfulness and elements of dialectical behavior therapy are used when helpful. The focus is on building coping skills, managing strong emotions, and improving daily functioning.
Sara also brings experience addressing relationship strain, intimacy issues, grief, addiction concerns, and identity matters such as LGBT and gender dysphoria questions. She pays attention to how eating and body image issues affect a person’s mood and behavior. In the first sessions she works with people to identify what matters most to them and what small steps feel doable.
Subsequent visits focus on practicing new skills, tracking progress, and adjusting plans when life changes. Sessions may include short skills practice, thought tracking, values-guided tasks, and mindfulness exercises. Her goal is to make therapy understandable and useful so people can use what they learn in day-to-day life.
Therapeutic approaches and online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice what matters to them and take actions that match those values. It uses simple exercises to reduce avoidance and increase purposeful living, which can help with anxiety and low mood.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on the connection between thoughts, feelings, and actions. It teaches practical skills for spotting unhelpful thinking and testing new behaviors to reduce worry and improve day-to-day function.
Mindfulness Therapy brings attention to the present moment with gentle awareness practices. This can reduce reactivity and help people manage stress, sleeping problems, and strong emotions.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to choose and adapt methods based on their goals, comfort, and life situation. Treatment plans are adjusted as needs change so the approach stays useful.
Online therapy offers flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video works well for more in-depth sessions and skill demonstrations. Phone can be easier when bandwidth is limited or for quick check-ins. Live chat and text messaging are useful for brief coaching, symptom tracking, and ongoing support between longer sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life.
Questions people ask
What concerns does she help with?
What is her therapeutic style like?
How much experience does she have?
What are her credentials and where does she practice?
Which languages are offered for sessions?
Can international clients work together with her?
What session formats are available?
How much do sessions cost and how do subscriptions work?
What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Eating disorders
Also listed
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trichotillomania
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 19 years
- Licensed
- Missouri, Kansas, New Hampshire, Alabama
- Languages
- English
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