Ann Ghabel

Ann Ghabel is a Licensed Independent Social Worker (LISW) based in Iowa with over a decade of professional therapy experience. She combines focused listening with practical tools to help people manage stress, anxiety, trauma, and parenting challenges. Her approach is calm and straightforward, aimed at helping people feel heard and understood as they take the first steps toward change.

She draws on Trauma-Focused Therapy alongside client-centered methods to help people process difficult experiences. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) tools are used when helpful to identify unhelpful thoughts and build coping skills. Hypnotherapy and Brainspotting are additional tools she may use when they fit a person’s goals.

Her background includes long experience in inpatient child psychiatry as a nurse and as an educator in psychiatric nursing. That clinical history informs how she explains things and keeps sessions practical. She focuses on clear, simple strategies a person can try between visits.

Common concerns she helps people with include family conflict, grief, depression, sleep and eating issues, anger, self-esteem, ADHD, and managing life changes. She also works with more specific issues such as adoption and foster care questions, caregiving stress, chronic illness, and effects of domestic violence.

People describe the work as collaborative: she listens first and then helps pick approaches that match goals. To begin, a short matching questionnaire and a scheduling step are used to connect with her practice.

How therapeutic approaches shape online work

Trauma-Focused Therapy centers on helping people process past painful events in ways that reduce their ongoing impact. It often involves careful pacing, grounding strategies, and talking through memories when a person feels ready. Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes the person’s own goals and pace, offering acceptance and active listening so people can clarify what they want to change. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions interact and provides exercises to test and change unhelpful thinking patterns.

Choosing the right approach is a team effort. The therapist will listen to what matters most, discuss options, and try methods that match the person’s needs and preferences. Plans are adjusted over time based on what helps and what doesn’t, so the work stays practical and focused on real life goals.

The original profile does not list specific session formats, so confirm current options before booking. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy life - for example by removing travel time, allowing shorter check-ins during a work break, or making it easier to join from different locations. Licensed professionals can use the tools described above in remote sessions to teach coping skills, guide processing of difficult memories, and support changes people want to make.