About Alanna
Alanna Higgins is a licensed clinical social worker practicing in Pennsylvania. She has a decade of experience helping people manage stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, career difficulties, depression, and compassion fatigue. She approaches each person with respect for their strengths and their story.
Alanna believes the person in therapy knows their life best. She works collaboratively to identify what is getting in the way and helps people try new ways of coping.
Background and approach
Sessions focus on practical skills and small steps that fit into daily life. Her work addresses both immediate problems and deeper patterns. She supports people dealing with relationship wounds, guilt, shame, feelings of emptiness, or trouble trusting their own choices.
She also helps with adoption and foster care concerns, caregiver stress, and issues linked to military or veteran experiences. Alanna uses a mix of methods to tailor care to each person. She draws on cognitive tools to change unhelpful thoughts, mindfulness to steady attention, and trauma-focused approaches for past hurts.
Treatment is paced to match goals and comfort level. People who reach out will find a straightforward, down-to-earth approach. Alanna aims for sessions that leave people with concrete ideas they can try between meetings.
She welcomes questions and helps map realistic next steps for change.
Therapeutic approaches for online work
Alanna commonly uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and EMDR in online sessions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps identify and change unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors, which is useful for anxiety, depression, and career-related stress. Dialectical Behavior Therapy teaches practical skills for managing intense emotions and improving interpersonal effectiveness. EMDR is a trauma-focused approach that works with memories and distressing images to reduce their emotional impact. She sees finding the right approach as a collaborative process. The therapist will discuss goals, listen to what has and has not helped before, and recommend a path that fits the person's needs and pace. This can include combining methods and adjusting over time based on progress and preference. Online therapy offers flexibility for different schedules and preferences. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions can be helpful when bandwidth is limited or a quick check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging work well for shorter updates, ongoing coaching, or when typing feels easier than speaking. These options make it simpler to keep momentum and fit sessions into a busy life, while still working toward concrete goals.Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Self esteem
- Career difficulties
Also works with
- Adoption and foster care
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Commitment issues
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed
- Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware
- Languages
- English