Austa Murray, LCSW

Austa Murray is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) practicing in Illinois who helps people facing stress, anxiety, relationship and intimacy-related concerns, grief, parenting strain, and issues related to trauma and abuse. She also supports people dealing with self-esteem, mood challenges such as depression and bipolar symptoms, ADHD, and questions around identity and LGBT concerns. Austa aims to move at a pace that feels manageable and to build a solid therapeutic connection so people can get the support they’re seeking.

She brings 22 years of clinical experience across individual, group, and family settings. Her work often begins with the client’s immediate priorities and then expands into skill-building and insight. Sessions combine listening with practical tools to help with coping, communication, and emotion regulation.

Austa describes her style as compassionate and nonjudgmental, with an emphasis on education and understanding. She uses strengths-based and developmentally informed perspectives to tailor interventions. Cognitive-behavioral techniques are blended with attachment-focused ideas to address how past relationships affect current patterns.

Her approach also draws on dialectical behavior concepts and elements of the Gottman Method when relationship communication and patterns are central to the work. Therapy is collaborative: goals and plans are set together and adjusted based on progress and needs.

People seeking help for abandonment, attachment issues, blended family challenges, caregiver stress, codependency, or trauma-related dissociation will find her background relevant. She practises in Illinois and conducts sessions in English.

How attachment work and skills-based therapy translate online

Austa uses attachment-based ideas to look at how early relationships shape current patterns. This approach focuses on understanding emotional bonds and how they show up in relationships, which can help with intimacy concerns, abandonment worries, and communication problems.

She also uses client-centered methods that prioritize the person’s experience and goals, offering a supportive space to talk through stress, trauma, and parenting challenges. Cognitive behavioral strategies are used to identify unhelpful thoughts and develop practical coping skills for anxiety, mood, and ADHD-related difficulties.

Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will collaborate with each person to pick methods that match their needs, goals, and comfort level. Plans are adjusted over time based on what helps most.

Confirm the current session options before booking, as formats are not specified here. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy week, reduce travel time, and allow shorter check-ins when needed. It can also let someone join from a location with fewer distractions or choose an option that doesn’t require being on camera. Licensed professionals and therapists can use these conveniences to help incorporate therapy into daily life.