About Akamin
Dr. Akamin Nkengaka helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, trauma and substance use concerns. He is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, LCSW, practicing in Illinois.
He focuses on improving self-esteem and navigating relationship challenges. His style is straightforward and supportive for people taking a first step toward change. Dr.
Nkengaka uses practical tools drawn from cognitive and behavioral approaches. He looks at patterns of thought and feeling, and helps people try new ways of responding.
Background and approach
Sessions aim to be solution-focused while still honoring a person’s strengths and history. He describes therapy as a collaborative process. People set goals and try small, doable steps between meetings.
The work often includes learning skills for emotion regulation, making values-based choices, and changing unhelpful thinking patterns. With 15 years of experience, he brings steady clinical practice to common and complex concerns. He blends approaches to match what each person needs rather than sticking to a single method.
That could mean practicing a new coping skill one week and addressing attachment patterns the next. Dr. Nkengaka offers sessions in English and accepts international clients.
Appointments are available by video call, phone, live chat, or text messaging. Therapy uses a subscription model that can be canceled at any time and cost varies with location and therapist availability.
How therapeutic approaches translate to online work
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people clarify what matters to them and take action toward those values even when hard feelings show up. It is useful for anxiety, depression, and stress that get in the way of daily life. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns and teaches practical strategies to change them, which can help with anxiety, depression, and addiction-related habits. Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on how early relationships shape current connections and emotional responses, and it can help people who struggle with trust, abandonment fears, or relationship patterns.Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will talk with each person about their goals and preferences and then try methods that fit. That might mean using ACT exercises one week and CBT skill practice the next, always checking in on what is helping.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make care more flexible. Video works well for in-depth conversation and exercises, phone can be easier when bandwidth is limited, and chat or text suit quick check-ins or short, skill-focused work. These options let people fit therapy around work, caregiving, and travel while still accessing licensed professionals and consistent clinical support.
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- 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 and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- Hearing impaired
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Traumatic brain injury
- Trichotillomania
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Visually impaired
- Women's 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)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Gottman Method
- Hypnotherapy
- Imago Relationship Therapy
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 15 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English