About Brenda
Brenda Hanson is a licensed social worker who helps people facing anxiety, stress, depression, grief, and life changes. She brings 41 years of clinical experience and a steady, down-to-earth presence to sessions. Many people come to her when everyday coping feels hard or when past hurts keep getting in the way of daily life.
Brenda uses simple, practical tools to help people manage strong emotions and build healthier habits. She blends approaches that focus on values, behavior change, and understanding attachment patterns.
Background and approach
Sessions typically move at the client’s pace and focus on concrete steps that fit each person’s life. Her background includes long experience with trauma and abuse, addiction, bipolar concerns, and compassion fatigue. She also supports people dealing with body image, chronic illness, caregiver stress, and issues that arise after separation or divorce.
Brenda pays attention to how relationships and early attachment experiences shape current coping styles. Brenda works with identity and intimacy-related concerns, including LGBT issues and challenges around communication and boundaries. She also helps with sleep and eating concerns, parenting strain, and career or purpose questions.
Her goal is to help people regain steadiness and clearer choice-making. Clients can expect an approachable, client-centered tone that values self-compassion alongside practical change. Brenda explains tools clearly and adapts strategies from multiple methods to match each person’s needs.
Over many years she has helped people find ways to move forward when life feels stuck.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people clarify what matters to them and take small steps toward those values despite difficult feelings. It’s useful for anxiety, depression, and decision-related stress. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on identifying unhelpful thought patterns and trying out new behaviors to reduce symptoms and improve daily functioning. It’s often used for anxiety, mood concerns, and sleep or eating issues.Choosing the right approach is a shared process. The therapist will listen to your goals and try a few methods to see what fits. Over a few sessions she will adapt techniques based on what helps you feel steadier and more capable in everyday life.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging so people can pick what matches their routine. Video is good for deeper conversation and visual cues, while phone or text can fit a quick check-in or a low-bandwidth option. These choices make it easier to keep therapy consistent while balancing work, caregiving, and other commitments.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- 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)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Systemic Therapy
- Experience
- 41 years
- Licensed
- Kansas, Iowa
- Languages
- English
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