About William
William Swieringa is a licensed clinical social worker with 39 years of practice in Illinois. He helps people facing stress, anxiety, addiction, grief, mood changes, and career or relationship questions. William uses a calm, practical style to guide people through hard life moments.
He aims to make sessions straightforward and focused. Conversations often include working on habits, clarifying values, and trying small experiments between meetings. William mixes problem-solving with reflection so people can act on what matters to them.
Background and approach
Many clients come with sleep problems, anger, low self-esteem, or struggles around intimacy. He also supports people dealing with trauma, caregiving strain, chronic illness, or major life transitions. Sessions address both everyday coping and longer-term patterns that cause pain.
William draws on approaches like cognitive behavioral work, acceptance and commitment ideas, existential questions, mindfulness, and motivational interviewing. Those methods are used to help people notice thoughts, reconnect with values, and build workable routines. He offers help in English and works with international clients as well.
Sessions are scheduled by an online matching and booking process, and formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. William describes therapy as a collaborative process focused on practical next steps and clearer priorities.
How these approaches work online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and reconnect with personal values. It focuses on small, purposeful actions that fit your life and can help with anxiety, depression, and life changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at the links between thoughts, feelings, and actions and teaches practical skills to change patterns that keep problems going. Mindfulness-based work encourages present-moment awareness and can reduce reactivity to stress and emotional pain.Choosing the right approach is part of the work. William will talk with each person about goals and preferences, and together they will try methods that feel useful. The process is collaborative and adjustments are made as progress or needs change.
Online sessions give practical flexibility. Video calls let you read facial cues and use screen-shared worksheets. Phone sessions can be a good option when bandwidth is limited or a shorter check-in fits the day. Live chat and text-based messaging let you send updates, try brief exercises between meetings, or check in when a quick thought comes up. These formats make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life while keeping focus on concrete steps and everyday routines.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
Also works with
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 39 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English