About Lisa
Lisa Tomala is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with 20 years of clinical experience. She helps people facing anxiety, depression, trauma and abuse, grief, addiction, and ADHD. Lisa listens with compassion and moves at each person's pace to address immediate needs and daily struggles.
She focuses on what’s happening now while also looking at patterns from the past. Sessions are straightforward and practical. She helps people reframe difficult thoughts, build new habits, and find clearer ways to respond to stress and relationships.
Background and approach
Her background includes work with active-duty service members and with teens and adults coping with PTSD, depression, substance use, and grief. That experience shaped a calm, steady approach to trauma and loss. She also welcomes people who want to bring their spiritual or philosophical beliefs into sessions.
Lisa uses a mix of well-established techniques to match each person’s needs. She pays attention to how early experiences affect current behavior and helps clients rewire unhelpful patterns. The work ranges from short, focused strategies to deeper talks about meaning and identity.
Clients can expect a nonjudgmental space to speak honestly about fears, anger, and shame. Lisa helps set clear goals and practical steps toward better sleep, improved relationships, reduced stress, or stronger self-esteem. Outside of work she enjoys painting, hiking, family time, and her Australian Cattle dog.
How evidence-based methods work online
Lisa commonly blends cognitive-behavioral strategies with psychodynamic ideas to help people change unhelpful thoughts and understand the roots of recurring patterns. Cognitive-behavioral techniques teach practical skills for anxiety, sleep, and mood by breaking problems into manageable steps. Psychodynamic work looks at how early experiences shape behavior and helps people gain insight into repeated reactions.She also uses motivational interviewing to help people find their own reasons for change and to build commitment for goals like reducing substance use or improving daily routines. That approach is collaborative and gentle, aimed at strengthening motivation rather than pushing for quick fixes.
Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work. The therapist will review goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t helped before to decide on techniques together. Clients take an active role in choosing what feels most useful and practical.
Online therapy options include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging, which make scheduling easier around work and family life. Video calls allow face-to-face conversations, phone sessions can be a good fit when bandwidth is limited, and chat or messaging supports brief check-ins or ongoing reflection between sessions. These formats help make therapy more accessible and fit into busy routines.
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Trauma and abuse
- Grief
- Bipolar disorder
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed
- Virginia
- Languages
- English
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