About Frances
Frances Higgins is a licensed independent clinical social worker with thirty years of experience. She focuses on practical support for stress, anxiety, depression, ADHD, trauma, and relationship struggles. Her style is straightforward and listening-first.
She works with each person to choose useful steps and goals. Frances prefers clear collaboration. She begins by hearing what matters most to the client and then offers options from different approaches.
Sessions often mix problem-solving skills with attention to emotions and attachment.
Background and approach
She frames therapy around small changes that add up over time. When trauma or abuse is part of someone's story, Frances uses trauma-informed ideas to help manage symptoms and rebuild a sense of safety. She draws on cognitive behavioral techniques to address unhelpful thinking and on emotionally focused work to strengthen connections and emotional expression.
Practical coping tools and skills training are common parts of sessions. Many clients appreciate that she balances empathy with concrete strategies. She also supports people dealing with grief, addictions, parenting strain, identity questions, and compassion fatigue.
Frances works by helping clients set achievable goals and try new ways of handling old problems. Frances practices in Massachusetts and offers services in English. She accepts international clients and provides a mix of video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to meet different needs.
Using evidence-based approaches in online care
Frances uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people notice and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors; this approach is often useful for anxiety, depression, ADHD-related focus challenges, and problem solving. She also uses attachment-based ideas to look at how early and current relationships shape feelings and reactions, which can help with intimate relationship issues and emotion regulation.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Frances collaborates with each person to decide which methods match their needs, goals, and preferences. That may mean trying a skill-based CBT exercise one week and focusing on emotion or attachment material the next. The plan is revised together as progress and needs change.
Online sessions include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to increase flexibility. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation for deep work, phone sessions can be a good shorter check-in or when bandwidth is limited, and chat or messaging can support ongoing coaching or quick skill practice between longer sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules and to keep continuity across life changes.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating disorders
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Jealousy
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Trauma and abuse
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- Massachusetts
- Languages
- English
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