About Lawrence
Lawrence "Larry" Westenberg is a licensed clinical social worker with more than 42 years of experience in behavioral health. He began his career in inpatient settings and gradually built a practice that focuses on practical change. Larry uses straightforward language and a strengths-based approach to help people find what works for them.
He concentrates on stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, and depression. He also helps with addictions, bipolar concerns, ADHD, and issues around intimacy and relationships.
Background and approach
Additional focus areas include grief, caregiver stress, career questions, and life purpose. Larry favors clear goals and hands-on strategies. He draws on client-centered methods and cognitive behavioral ideas to identify unhelpful patterns and try new ways of coping.
He also brings existential perspectives to questions of meaning, and he offers hypnotherapy and mindfulness tools when those fit a person’s needs. Sessions aim to be practical and collaborative. He helps people notice strengths, test small changes, and build everyday skills.
The tone is direct but respectful, with attention to how life actually works outside the therapy room. He practices in Illinois and speaks English. His long career includes work in inpatient, outpatient, partial hospitalization, and crisis intervention settings.
That background shapes a focus on usable skills and real-life problem solving.
How Larry Uses Different Approaches Online
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and building a trusting relationship. It helps people feel heard and clarifies what they want to change or understand about their life.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at thoughts and behaviors that keep problems going. It uses straightforward exercises and small experiments to reduce anxiety, depression, or unhelpful habits.
Existential Therapy helps when people wrestle with meaning, purpose, or major life choices. It encourages honest conversations about values and what matters most to the individual.
Finding the right approach is something to do together. The therapist will talk with the person about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t helped before. Then they adapt tools and methods to fit the client’s needs rather than following a rigid formula.
Online sessions can be scheduled as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video allows face-to-face conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can be easier to fit during a break. Live chat and text messaging let people check in between meetings or have shorter, focused conversations. These options make it easier to keep therapy consistent around work, caregiving, or travel.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 42 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English