Debra Dean , LCSW

Debra Dean is an LCSW with 35 years of experience and holds licensure in Florida and Utah. She brings a practical, solution-focused mindset to sessions and aims to help people navigate difficult life moments. Debra emphasizes collaboration and respects each person as the expert on their own story.

She has worked in a range of clinical settings and has developed many problem-solving skills over a long career. That background informs her work with grief and loss, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, and coping with life changes. She also helps people managing compassion fatigue, workplace stress, and substance-related concerns.

Debra offers support around relationship and intimacy-related issues, self-esteem, narcissistic abuse recovery, and trauma and abuse. Her practice includes work related to aging and geriatric concerns, hospice and end-of-life counseling, and family of origin or family problem issues. She also lists LGBT and women's issues among her focus areas.

Sessions are conversational and aimed at education and practical steps. Debra listens for strengths in each person’s story and then helps turn those strengths into manageable plans. People can expect a steady, solution-oriented approach rather than long theoretical explanations.

Her professional history spans many roles, so she is comfortable tailoring strategies to different life situations. Debra uses what she’s learned to help people set realistic goals and try small changes that add up over time.

How practical approaches meet online therapy

Debra draws on well-established, evidence-based therapeutic techniques that emphasize problem solving and coping skills. One common method focuses on skills training and behavioral strategies that help people manage symptoms of anxiety, depression, and bipolar mood shifts by changing routines and practicing new responses to stressors. Another approach emphasizes grief work and coping strategies to help people navigate loss and end-of-life concerns through paced processing and concrete planning.

Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist evaluates needs, goals, and personal preferences and then recommends techniques to try. Clients and the therapist adjust methods over time based on what helps most, so the plan stays collaborative and responsive.

Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to fit different schedules and needs. Video is useful for deeper conversations and visual cues, phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited, live chat supports quick check-ins, and text messaging can help with brief updates or reminders. These options make it easier to fit therapy around work, caregiving, or mobility limits while keeping continuity of care.