Tara Hartley

Tara Hartley is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with nine years of experience helping people navigate major life stressors. She works in Illinois and supports people dealing with grief, loss, and end-of-life concerns alongside a wide range of emotional struggles.

Her style is warm and interactive. Sessions focus on practical problem solving and clear steps people can take between meetings. Tara avoids labels and treats each person with respect and compassion while tailoring conversations to their needs.

She combines client-centered methods with cognitive behavioral and dialectical behavior approaches. That means she listens closely, helps people track thoughts and behaviors, and teaches skills for managing strong emotions. Mindfulness and existential ideas are woven in when questions about meaning or values come up.

Tara has experience supporting people with depression, anxiety, addiction, trauma, relationship and parenting problems, and compassion fatigue among other concerns. She has also worked with aging and caregiver stress and with people affected by cancer and serious illness.

In sessions she helps people organize problems, set realistic goals, and practice new ways of coping. The focus is on building skills that make daily life feel more manageable and on making choices that fit personal values and relationships.

Therapeutic approaches for online care and coping

Client-Centered Therapy is about listening carefully and shaping sessions around each person's goals and concerns. It helps when someone needs a supportive space to make sense of difficult feelings and decide what they want to change. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and habits and practicing concrete techniques to change mood and behavior. It is useful for anxiety, depression, and everyday problems that get in the way of functioning. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, teaches skills for managing intense emotions and improving how people relate to others; it can be helpful when strong emotional reactions make daily life harder.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with the person to match methods to their needs, goals, and preferences rather than using a single fixed method. This means the plan can change as progress is made and new priorities appear.

Session formats should be confirmed before booking so people know what is offered. Online therapy can make it easier to fit appointments into a busy schedule, reduce travel time, and allow shorter check-ins when that fits better with a workday. It also lets people use skills rehearsed in session in their ordinary environment and bring real-life examples to conversations, which can speed up practical progress.