About Deborah
Deborah "Debbie" Kirby is a licensed clinical social worker with 24 years of professional experience. She practices from Oregon and brings a background that includes executive and professional coaching alongside traditional therapy work. Debbie aims to make the first step easier for people who are nervous about starting therapy.
Debbie creates an open, nonjudgmental space where thoughts and feelings can be talked through. She focuses on listening carefully and helping people find practical steps that fit their lives.
Background and approach
Sessions often center on sorting priorities, building coping skills, and addressing stressors that get in the way of daily functioning. Her work covers common concerns such as stress, anxiety, grief, career questions, and coping with life changes. She also helps with trauma and abuse, eating concerns, parenting strain, and compassion fatigue.
Additional areas of focus include adoption and foster care, blended family issues, and communication problems. Debbie uses approaches like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and attachment-informed methods depending on client needs. She tailors techniques to each person instead of using one fixed method.
The style is collaborative and grounded in real-world problem solving. People who benefit tend to want clear options, steady support, and practical tools they can try between sessions. Debbie combines coaching experience with therapeutic practice to help people move toward clearer goals and better daily coping.
Online approaches that meet you where you are
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people notice difficult thoughts without getting stuck and then take small steps toward what matters. It can be useful for anxiety, stress, and life transitions where values and action matter. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on the link between thoughts, feelings, and behavior and offers concrete skills to change unhelpful patterns; it is often used for anxiety, low mood, and coping strategies. Attachment-informed work looks at how early relationships shape current patterns and can help with communication, trust, and healing from relational wounds.Finding the right approach is part of the process. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t helped before. Together they choose methods and adjust them as progress and needs evolve, so the plan stays practical and relevant.
Online therapy offers flexibility in how people connect. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation, phone sessions can work when bandwidth is limited, and live chat or text messaging suit brief check-ins or times when writing feels easier. These options make it simpler to fit sessions into busy schedules and to keep steady momentum between meetings.
Frequently asked questions
What issues does she help with?
What is her therapeutic style like?
How much experience does she have?
Where is she licensed and based?
Which languages are supported?
What session formats are available?
How are sessions priced?
How do I begin working with her?
Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Grief
- Career difficulties
Also works with
- Adoption and foster care
- Blended family issues
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Eating disorders
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Infidelity
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 24 years
- Licensed
- Oregon
- Languages
- English