About Deborah
Deborah (Debbie) Connery helps people manage stress, anxiety, depression, grief, and big life changes. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 33 years of experience based in Illinois. Debbie focuses on practical steps people can use to feel steadier and more hopeful again.
She offers a calm, down-to-earth style in sessions. Debbie listens closely and helps clients notice strengths they already have. Conversations tend to focus on clear goals and small, doable changes rather than jargon or complex theory.
Background and approach
Debbie uses tools from client-centered work and cognitive behavioral approaches to help people shift unhelpful thoughts and routines. She also draws on motivational interviewing and solution-focused ideas when clients want to set priorities and move toward them. Trauma-focused methods are available when past events are getting in the way of daily life.
Sessions often include talking through worries, planning steps to handle stress, and practicing ways to cope with intense emotions. She can help people address relationship strain, career concerns, feelings of emptiness, and issues like hoarding or obsessive thoughts. End-of-life and hospice concerns are also within her focus.
Debbie emphasizes collaboration. She helps clients choose which approaches fit their situation and adjusts plans as progress happens. Her goal is to make therapy understandable and useful for each person.
Therapeutic approaches adapted for online care
Debbie commonly uses client-centered work to create a respectful space where the client leads the priorities and the therapist follows. This approach focuses on listening, empathy, and reflecting what matters most to the person, which helps when sorting through grief, loneliness, or a sense of emptiness.She also uses cognitive behavioral therapy, which looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions connect. CBT offers concrete techniques to change unhelpful thinking and to build new habits, which can help with anxiety, panic, and depression. Motivational interviewing may be used to help someone find internal reasons to change when facing career choices, health goals, or patterns that feel stuck.
Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work together. The therapist will ask about goals, daily routines, and what has or hasn’t helped before, then suggest options. Clients and the therapist decide together which methods to try and adjust plans as needed.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video works well for deeper conversations and visual cues, phone sessions can fit a break at work or be easier when bandwidth is limited, chat is useful for brief check-ins, and messaging supports ongoing contact between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules and different life demands.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Social anxiety and phobia
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 33 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English