Diana Elstad , LMHC

Diana Elstad is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) with 35 years of experience. She helps people facing addictions, depression, anxiety, trauma, relationship concerns, grief, and life changes. Diana works with issues like parenting stress, sleep and eating struggles, self-esteem problems, and LGBT-related concerns. She also addresses caregiving strain, codependency, and intimacy-related worries.

Over her career she has worked in community clinics, treatment centers, hospitals, and private practice across Washington. That background means she has seen many presentations of the same problems and practical ways to approach them. Diana often combines several methods to match what a person needs in the moment.

Her style is warm, respectful, and attentive. She focuses on listening carefully and noticing the feelings that come beneath the words. Sessions are conversational and grounded in real-life steps people can try between meetings.

Diana draws from client-centered approaches, cognitive behavioral ideas, dialectical skills, motivational interviewing, and narrative techniques. She adapts tools from these approaches to help with coping, rebuilding relationships, and managing strong emotions.

People choose her for steady guidance and decades of experience. She aims to create a space where worries can be named, patterns can be understood, and small changes can be practiced.

Therapeutic approaches and online care

Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and understanding each person's experience. The therapist follows the person's lead, reflects feelings, and helps people feel heard as they work through concerns like relationship trouble, grief, or low self-esteem.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are connected. It teaches practical skills for managing anxiety, depression, sleep issues, and patterns that keep problems going. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, adds concrete emotion-regulation and distress-tolerance skills for managing intense feelings and improving coping.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will talk with each person about their goals and preferences and adapt methods that fit. This is a collaborative process that may mix listening, skill-building, and short experiments between sessions.

Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation when visual cues help. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or when someone needs a quick check-in. Live chat and text messaging offer shorter, flexible exchanges that can fit into a busy day. These options help people access therapy around work, caregiving, or mobility constraints.