About Annette
Annette Rios-Barrera is a licensed clinical social worker based in Texas with 23 years of experience. She uses a trauma-aware approach to help people facing anxiety, depression, grief, and identity questions. Annette prefers to shape therapy around each person’s goals and values.
Clients find practical ways to manage stress and rebuild connection in her sessions. She works with people in the LGBT community and those navigating nontraditional relationships, and she addresses relationship and intimacy-related concerns.
Background and approach
Annette also supports people dealing with career changes, caregiving strain, chronic illness, and body image issues. Her style is collaborative and down-to-earth. She mixes evidence-informed methods with a gentle, person-centered stance.
That means she listens first, then suggests techniques such as behavioral experiments, skills for emotional regulation, and strategies to change unhelpful thinking. Attachment patterns and past losses often shape current struggles, so she pays attention to relational history while teaching concrete tools.
She may use practices from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people live in line with their values and reduce avoidance. Annette speaks English and Spanish and brings warmth and occasional playfulness to serious work, including elements like laughter exercises when useful. Her aim is to help people build resilience and clearer connection to themselves and others.
How therapeutic approaches translate to online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and take action that matches their values. It emphasizes small, practical steps and accepting difficult feelings while moving toward meaningful goals. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on the link between thoughts, feelings, and behavior and uses tools like activity planning and thought experiments to reduce symptoms and improve daily functioning.Finding the best approach is part of the work together. The therapist will talk through goals and try methods that fit a person’s needs and preferences. That collaborative process lets adjustments be made over time so the therapy matches what is actually helpful.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to provide flexibility. Video calls let people work face-to-face when bandwidth and a quiet space are available. Phone sessions use less data and can fit into a short break at work. Live chat and text messaging are useful for quick check-ins, skill practice, or when someone prefers writing instead of speaking. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life and to maintain regular contact between scheduled sessions.
Questions people ask
What concerns does she address?
What is her therapeutic style like?
How much experience does she have?
Where is she based and what are her credentials?
Which languages are available for sessions?
What session formats are offered?
How does payment and cost work?
How do I begin working together?
What this therapist works with
Most often
- LGBT
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Gottman Method
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Systemic Therapy
- Experience
- 23 years
- Licensed
- Texas
- Languages
- English, Spanish
We will earn a commission if you sign up through our link, at no cost to you.