About Tonya
Tonya Carpenter is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) based in Montana who helps people manage stress, anxiety, addiction, trauma, mood concerns, and life transitions. She aims to be direct and clear in sessions while staying warm and nonjudgmental. Tonya believes people are not broken and that therapy is about building better ways to live with the tools a person already has.
She draws on seven years of experience across hospital, school, and community settings.
Background and approach
That work included behavior intervention in middle and high schools and counseling adults with disabilities. Her Master of Social Work is from the University of Southern California with a focus on Military and Veterans Affairs, and she brings an understanding of service member experiences to her practice. In sessions Tonya focuses on practical steps and clear questions rather than vague talk.
She uses client-centered and strengths-based methods to meet people where they are. Her style mixes collaborative discussion with goal-focused exercises to address things like anxiety, depression, substance use, and trauma-related distress. Tonya uses several evidence-based methods to inform care, including cognitive behavioral ideas and skills from dialectical behavior therapy.
She also incorporates acceptance and values-based work to help people make choices that match what matters most to them. The emphasis is on skills you can use between sessions. Communication is an important part of her practice: she aims to respond to messages within 24 hours on weekdays and works with clients to schedule live sessions when possible.
The plan is to help people build clearer routines, better coping skills, and more satisfying daily life.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Tonya uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people notice and change patterns of thought and behavior that fuel anxiety and low mood. CBT often includes simple exercises and homework to practice new skills between sessions.She also draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which focuses on clarifying values and taking small committed actions even when difficult feelings are present. This approach can help with rumination, anxiety, and motivation to make life changes.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. Tonya will collaborate with each person to choose methods that match their goals, preferences, and daily life. She adjusts her plan as progress and needs become clearer over time.
Online therapy offers practical flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when a longer session is needed, phone sessions work well when bandwidth is low or a client prefers not to be on camera, and live chat or text-based messaging supports quick check-ins or brief skill coaching. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, school, or caregiving schedules while keeping continuity over weeks or months.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- 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)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 7 years
- Licensed
- Montana
- Languages
- English
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