About Cathy
Cathy O'Brien is a Licensed Master Social Worker who brings six years of direct practice to people managing stress, mood shifts, trauma, and ADHD. She works with adults on issues such as anxiety, depression, grief, eating concerns, and parenting strain. Cathy aims to make first conversations straightforward and nonjudgmental so people can begin helpful work quickly.
She begins by building a trusting relationship so clients feel heard and safe to share hard experiences.
Background and approach
Her sessions focus on practical skills - learning ways to manage overwhelming emotion, reduce anxiety, and handle impulsivity. Cathy uses clear tools that people can try between sessions and adapt to their daily life. Cathy draws on multiple approaches to match each person’s needs.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps break unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns. Mindfulness practice supports staying present and reducing reactivity. Client-centered work keeps the person’s goals central to every step.
Her background includes work in schools and clinics, with experience across mood disorders, trauma, attachment concerns, adoption and foster care, and neurodiversity. She has supported people coping with panic, obsessive-compulsive patterns, self-harm, and disruptive mood concerns. Cathy also assists people processing career stress and self-esteem struggles.
Sessions are offered in English from Michigan and are provided by video, phone, live chat, or text messaging. Cathy asks new clients to complete a short matching questionnaire to begin and schedules sessions based on mutual convenience.
How Cathy’s Approaches Work Online
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is used to identify and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. It teaches clear steps people can practice between sessions to reduce anxiety, manage mood swings, and address compulsive patterns.Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and following the person’s goals. This approach creates room for people to set the pace, shape priorities, and feel understood while working through difficult feelings and family-related concerns.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. Cathy will talk with each person about their goals and preferences and together decide which methods to try first. That collaboration helps tailor tools and exercises to the client’s everyday life and routines.
Online formats offer practical flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues, phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited, live chat supports shorter check-ins, and text messaging works for ongoing prompts or between-session support. These options make it simpler to fit therapy into work, school, or family schedules.
Questions people ask
What kinds of concerns can be addressed here?
How would you describe the therapy style?
What is Cathy’s background in mental health?
Where is the therapist located and what credential does she hold?
Which languages are supported for sessions?
What session formats are available?
How are fees and billing handled?
How do I begin if I want to try therapy?
What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Anger management
Also listed
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Eating disorders
- Family problems
- Grief
- Impulsivity
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Trichotillomania
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 6 years
- Licensed
- Michigan
- Languages
- English
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