About Tamela
Tamela Polanin, LCPC, focuses on helping people who feel overwhelmed by stress and anxiety. She offers steady, practical support for common struggles like depression, grief, parenting stress, relationship strain, and coping with life changes. Her approach centers on listening and helping clients build skills that fit their day-to-day lives.
Tamela has about 20 years of experience in mental health work and is based in Illinois. She draws on a client-centered mindset that treats each person as the expert on their life.
Background and approach
That means she spends time learning what matters to each person before suggesting ways forward. Her background includes focused work with trauma and related concerns. She uses methods that aim to reduce distress and improve emotional regulation, drawing on tools from cognitive and behavioral work as well as emotion-focused techniques.
She also brings experience using eye movement strategies for people processing painful memories. Sessions typically involve talking things through, learning coping skills, and practicing new ways of handling difficult moments. Tamela emphasizes collaboration - she helps clients set goals and choose techniques that match their needs.
She also supports practical problems like career stress, parenting challenges, and struggles with self-esteem. Outside of therapy Tamela is a parent and lives in a rural area where she raises registered pygmy goats. That personal perspective informs a down-to-earth style in sessions.
People who want straightforward, compassionate guidance for anxiety and life stress often find her approach accessible and practical.
How Tamela’s Approaches Translate to Online Care
Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and supporting the person's own goals. The therapist offers empathy and guidance while the client leads the pace and direction of sessions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions interact and teaches practical skills to reduce anxiety and manage mood. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, emphasizes emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and communication skills to handle intense feelings and relationship stress.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Tamela will talk with each person about their needs, goals, and preferences and then collaborate on tailoring techniques. That means trying strategies together and adjusting them based on what helps most in daily life.
Online therapy offers flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video lets people use visual cues and a fuller conversation. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or when someone prefers not to be on camera. Live chat and text-based messaging can fit short check-ins, quick skill practice, or people who prefer written communication. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules and to keep working on anxiety, trauma, or relationship concerns without long travel times.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- 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
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English
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