About Deborah
Deborah Hilyard is a licensed mental health counselor with more than three decades of experience in Florida. She earned her graduate degree in counseling from the University of Memphis in 1988 and has worked in a wide range of settings. Deborah has helped people who face stress, anxiety, depression, relationship problems, trauma, and many life transitions.
Her background includes work in military family centers where she supported service members during transitions out of the military and addressed relationship strain tied to separations.
Background and approach
She has also provided mental health care in foster care settings, completing thorough assessments of children and their caregivers. Over the years she has supported people dealing with abuse, grief, parenting challenges, career stress, and compassion fatigue. Deborah’s style is warm and interactive.
She treats people with respect and sensitivity and avoids stigmatizing labels. Sessions are conversational and tailored to what each person needs, so practical steps and personal values guide the work. She draws on a mix of client-centered work, cognitive behavioral ideas, mindfulness, motivational interviewing, and EMDR when appropriate.
That mix helps with symptoms like anxiety, mood struggles, trauma-related reactions, and difficulties with focus or motivation, including ADHD-related concerns. Deborah views therapy as a collaborative effort. She helps people set clear, achievable goals and adjusts methods over time.
Her aim is to support growth, restore functioning, and strengthen coping during life’s changes.
Approaches that translate to online care
Client-centered work focuses on listening and understanding your goals. It helps people clarify what matters most and guides how sessions are shaped to fit those aims.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at how thoughts and behaviors affect mood. It uses clear exercises and small habit changes to reduce anxiety, depression, and stress-related symptoms.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a structured approach used to process trauma-related memories. In online sessions it involves guided attention and talk-based processing to reduce the intensity of distressing memories.
Finding the right approach is part of the process. Deborah works collaboratively to identify strategies that match a person’s needs, goals, and preferences and adjusts those methods over time as progress is made.
Online therapy offers flexibility for busy lives. Video calls let you meet face to face from different places. Phone sessions or live chat can be lower bandwidth or easier when camera time is unwanted. Text-based messaging supports brief check-ins, journaling, and homework between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, and other routines.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Anger management
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 34 years
- Licensed
- Florida
- Languages
- English
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