Lori Cheek Gilroy , LCSW

Lori Cheek Gilroy, LCSW, focuses on helping people facing stress, anxiety, depression, life transitions, and relationship strains. She offers direct, practical guidance for everyday struggles like parenting stress, career shifts, grief, and trauma. Her approach is respectful and steady, aimed at helping each person find what works for them.

With 26 years of experience as a counselor and life coach, she has worked in child welfare, family counseling, a birthing center, crisis intervention, and community mental health. That range gives her familiarity with caregiving stress, adoption and foster care concerns, chronic illness, and mood disorders.

Her style centers on the person seeking help. Lori uses client-centered methods to listen first and build goals together. She also incorporates cognitive behavioral techniques to shift unhelpful thoughts and solution-focused steps to identify practical next moves.

Sessions can address trauma and post-traumatic stress with trauma-focused strategies when needed. She also uses motivational interviewing to help people find internal reasons to change and keep momentum toward their goals.

People who choose Lori can expect collaborative goal-setting, short-term problem solving, and attention to how life, family history, and stress impact daily functioning. She works in English and practices in Illinois as an LCSW. The focus is on helping people move from feeling stuck to taking manageable steps forward.

How Lori’s Approaches Translate to Online Care

Client-centered therapy means Lori listens first and follows each person's lead. She prioritizes the concerns you bring and helps set goals that matter to you, whether the issue is parenting stress, career questions, or grief.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing small behavior changes. This approach is useful for anxiety, depression, and adjusting to life changes because it gives concrete strategies to try between sessions.

Trauma-focused work addresses the impact of traumatic events on daily life. It includes pacing, stabilization, and practical coping skills to reduce distress and improve functioning over time.

Choosing the right approach is part of the work. Lori will collaborate with each person to decide which methods fit best based on needs, goals, and preferences. That plan can change as progress is made, with regular check-ins to make sure the direction still fits.

Online formats make it easier to fit therapy into busy lives. Video calls support face-to-face conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions need less bandwidth and can be easier during a short break. Live chat and text-based messaging allow quick check-ins, written reflections, and flexible scheduling that can suit different routines and energy levels.