About Lara
Lara Ashbaugh is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Missouri who draws on ten years of clinical experience. She focuses on practical skills for managing anxiety, stress, mood shifts, and relationship strains. Lara aims to help people take small, steady steps toward feeling more in control and hopeful.
She uses approaches that emphasize acceptance, present-moment awareness, and changing unhelpful thinking patterns. Sessions tend to be warm and interactive, with a focus on building skills for emotion regulation and coping.
Background and approach
Lara listens for strengths and then helps people use those strengths to manage daily challenges. Many people come for help with grief, depression, ADHD, trauma and abuse, or addiction-related concerns. She also offers support around parenting stress, career transitions, body image, and questions about gender identity.
Phobias are included among the areas she addresses when they affect daily life and functioning. Lara combines methods from cognitive behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy, and she uses Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills for emotion and relationship work. Mindfulness practices and client-centered conversation are woven into sessions to keep work practical and grounded.
Her style is respectful and nonjudgmental. She avoids labels and instead focuses on what is working and what can be changed. People who want to try coaching-style support alongside therapy may find that approach helpful.
To begin, she typically helps people set clear, achievable goals and then practices skills during and between sessions. The aim is steady progress rather than quick fixes.
Practical approaches for online therapy and skills work
Lara uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them. ACT often focuses on values and small actions that move someone toward a meaningful life despite ongoing struggles.She also draws heavily on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to identify unhelpful thinking patterns and test them with concrete behavior changes. CBT is useful for anxiety, depression, phobias, and many everyday problems because it links thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Finding the right blend of approaches is part of the work. Lara collaborates with people to choose methods that match their goals, preferences, and daily routines. Together they set clear, achievable targets and review progress as therapy continues.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to make care more flexible. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation and skills practice. Phone sessions can be a good option when bandwidth is limited or someone prefers not to be on camera. Live chat and messaging are useful for short check-ins, coaching-style support, or when someone needs ongoing written contact between sessions.
These formats make it easier to fit therapy around work, parenting, or other responsibilities while still practicing skills and tracking progress.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- Hearing impaired
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed
- Missouri
- Languages
- English
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