About Julie
Julie Ekman is a licensed clinical social worker with 29 years of experience in social work. She is based in Illinois and draws on a long career supporting people through stress, anxiety, family conflict, and life changes. Julie’s tone is practical and down-to-earth, focused on helping clients find workable steps forward.
She earned a Master of Social Work from the University of Denver and a Master of Arts in School Leadership from Concordia University.
Background and approach
Much of her career was spent as a school social worker and family therapist, including 26 years working with middle school students. That background gives her experience with school-related stress, communication challenges, and parenting concerns from an individual perspective. Julie uses a holistic, client-centered style that emphasizes strengths and real problem-solving.
She often combines solution-focused strategies with cognitive behavioral techniques to help people change unhelpful habits and feel more capable. Sessions tend to focus on practical steps clients can try between meetings. Her work covers common life struggles like self-esteem, career hurdles, coping with chronic pain or illness, and navigating separation or divorce.
She also addresses emotional topics such as guilt, shame, forgiveness, loneliness, and midlife questions. Clients can expect straightforward collaboration on goals and a plan tailored to their situation. Julie aims to create a respectful, compassionate space where people can make gradual, meaningful changes in daily life.
How therapeutic approaches work online with practical options
Julie often uses cognitive behavioral ideas to help people identify unhelpful thoughts and change small habits that contribute to anxiety or low mood. This approach focuses on concrete skills and experiments that can be practiced between sessions, useful for stress, panic, and social anxiety.She also uses solution-focused and strengths-based techniques that concentrate on what is already working. Those methods help set short-term, achievable goals and build confidence by amplifying existing strengths, which is helpful for career challenges, self-esteem, and life transitions.
Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. Julie will listen to your concerns, try methods that fit your goals, and adjust the plan based on what helps most. That collaborative process makes it easier to find practical strategies that fit daily life.
Online therapy options include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is useful when visual cues matter and a full session is needed. Phone calls can be a simpler option if bandwidth is limited or for a focused check-in. Live chat and text messaging work well for brief check-ins, questions between sessions, or when writing feels easier than speaking. These formats give flexibility to fit therapy into a busy schedule.
Frequently asked questions
What kinds of concerns does she help with?
What is her therapeutic approach and style?
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Self esteem
Also works with
- Career difficulties
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Divorce and separation
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Experience
- 29 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English