Barbara Austin , LISW-CP

Barbara Austin is a licensed social worker who helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, grief, and women's issues. She brings 25 years of experience and listens without judgment. Her focus includes parenting concerns, intimacy problems, trauma and abuse, and LGBTQ-related stress. Barbara keeps sessions simple and direct. She starts by hearing each person's story and noticing what has helped so far. Then she offers other ways to look at things and practical steps to try between sessions. Conversations aim to create small, useful changes rather than big, immediate overhauls. Her work often uses attachment ideas to look at how relationships shape feelings and reactions. She also uses client-centered and cognitive approaches to help people name thoughts that cause distress and test more helpful thinking. Narrative elements help people reframe their life stories when old patterns feel stuck. Barbara pays attention to family of origin issues, codependency, communication problems, and guilt or shame. She supports people through life transitions such as pregnancy, postpartum, and reinvention after loss. She also addresses self-esteem, life purpose, and building self-love. Sessions move at a person’s pace. The goal is clearer choices and more workable coping skills. Barbara aims to support and empower clients as they try different options and notice what fits their life.

Therapeutic approaches and online options

Barbara often combines attachment-based thinking with client-centered care to help people understand how relationships shape feelings and behavior. Attachment-based ideas look at patterns in close relationships and how those patterns affect stress, intimacy, and trust. Client-centered work focuses on listening, reflecting, and helping people find their own answers rather than prescribing solutions.

She also uses cognitive behavioral techniques to help identify and test unhelpful thoughts. CBT-style work breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and actions so clients can try small experiments and notice what changes. These approaches are useful for anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and relationship concerns and can be adapted for parenting or postpartum challenges.

Finding the right approach is part of the process and happens together. The therapist will talk with each person about goals and preferences, then try methods that fit those aims. Sessions are collaborative and can shift as needs change.

Online therapy options include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video lets people work face to face when that feels helpful, while phone sessions need less bandwidth and can fit a break at work. Live chat and text are useful for shorter check-ins, ongoing prompts, or when writing feels easier than talking. These formats offer flexibility to match scheduling, comfort, and how someone prefers to communicate.