Michele Petersmark , LCPC

Michele Petersmark is a licensed clinician in Illinois who brings 20 years of experience to her work. She focuses on common struggles like stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, and relationship or intimacy concerns. Michele aims to make the first step feel manageable and respects each person's story.

She uses straightforward talk and practical steps in sessions. Michele adapts conversations and plans to fit what each person needs. That can include building skills to manage panic, working through grief, or addressing sleep and eating challenges.

Michele draws on several approaches to guide sessions. She uses client-centered methods to follow what matters most to the client. She also uses cognitive behavioral ideas to spot unhelpful thinking and DBT skills for emotion regulation and coping.

Her background includes helping people handle life changes, parenting stress, career concerns, and burnout such as compassion fatigue. Michele works with mood-related challenges including bipolar disorder, panic, and other mood disorders, and she has supported people through trauma and abuse and postpartum depression.

Sessions can cover practical goals like improving communication, managing impulsivity or jealousy, exploring life purpose, and coping with financial worry. Michele also helps people facing fertility-related stress, aging issues, and feelings of isolation. She meets people where they are and builds a plan one step at a time.

How Michele’s approaches work in online therapy

Client-centered therapy focuses on listening closely and following what matters to the client. In practice this looks like Michele asking about priorities and shaping sessions around a person's goals and values, which helps when people are sorting out relationships, life purpose, or identity concerns.

Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, helps identify patterns of thought that keep problems going and then tests new ways of thinking and acting. This approach can be useful for anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and mood management by giving specific tools to try between sessions.

Dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, offers concrete skills for managing strong emotions and reducing impulsive reactions. It is often used when someone needs strategies for distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and improving interpersonal effectiveness.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. Michele will collaborate with each person to decide which methods fit their needs, goals, and preferences. That might mean trying one approach for a while, then adjusting based on how it is going.

Online sessions offer flexibility and practical benefits. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when visual cues help. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can be easier to fit into a break at work. Live chat or text-based messaging supports brief check-ins, ongoing coaching, or follow-up between longer appointments. These options make it easier to maintain a consistent schedule while working toward change.