About Rachel
Rachel Salazar is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) based in Illinois with eight years of practice. She focuses on helping people who feel overwhelmed, stuck, or unsure how to move forward. Rachel aims to make first steps in therapy feel manageable and straightforward for clients.
She supports people dealing with stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, and depression. She also helps clients cope with life changes, anger, and the effects of trauma and abuse.
Background and approach
Parenting concerns and issues related to first responders, veterans, and armed forces service are also areas she addresses. Rachel takes a flexible, practical approach in sessions. She mixes methods from different evidence-based techniques to match each person’s needs.
Conversations are tailored to the problem at hand and to what feels useful for the client. She aims to treat everyone with dignity, respect, sensitivity, and compassion. Sessions typically focus on setting clear goals, trying small changes between visits, and checking what’s working.
Rachel encourages people to speak plainly about what feels hard and what they hope to change. Starting therapy is often a brave move, and Rachel acknowledges that. She works collaboratively to build a plan that fits the person’s life and pace.
The goal is steady, manageable progress rather than quick fixes.
Therapeutic approaches and what to expect online
Rachel blends practical, evidence-based techniques to address common struggles. One approach focuses on building coping skills for anxiety and stress through step-by-step practices and short experiments between sessions. This helps people notice which strategies reduce worry and tension in daily life.Another approach centers on processing trauma and difficult experiences in small, manageable steps. Sessions aim to create clear goals, teach grounding strategies, and gradually work through painful memories or reactions so they feel less overwhelming.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist collaborates with each person to decide which methods fit their needs, goals, and comfort level. Plans are adjusted over time based on what helps most.
Online therapy offers flexibility that can make regular work easier. Video calls let people use visual cues and deeper conversation. Phone sessions are useful when bandwidth is limited or a quieter check-in is needed. Live chat and text messaging support brief updates, homework checks, or times when writing feels easier than talking. These options help sessions fit into busy schedules and different daily routines.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Anger management
- Coping with life changes
- First responder issues
- Life purpose
- Parenting issues
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Experience
- 8 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English