About Debra
Debra McGuffee is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Minnesota who helps people manage stress, anxiety, ADHD concerns, depression, and relationship difficulties. She takes a warm, direct approach and aims to make the first steps into therapy simple and clear.
Debra writes plain goals with clients and asks them to name three things they want to work on to guide early sessions. With three decades of clinical experience, she brings practical problem solving to the room.
Background and approach
Sessions often focus on communication, conflict resolution, trust after infidelity, and rebuilding self-esteem. She also supports people dealing with addiction, grief, chronic health challenges, and the emotional impact of caregiving. Her background includes long experience both in therapy settings and in business and corporate environments.
That mix informs a style that values real-world tools and straightforward conversation about work and life stressors. She is a Minnesota LMFT - Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Debra typically uses cognitive behavioral techniques to identify patterns of thinking and behavior, and she also draws on dialectical skills for emotion regulation.
She works in a client-centered way, following the person’s goals and values. When clients ask, she can include faith-based perspectives in counseling. People can expect clear suggestions, skill practice between sessions, and check-ins on progress.
Debra asks for practical goals at the start and adjusts the pace to match each person’s needs and priorities.
Practical approaches and online therapy options
Debra combines client-centered methods with cognitive behavioral techniques to help people notice unhelpful thinking and practice different behaviors. Client-centered work focuses on listening, reflecting the person's goals, and shaping sessions around what matters most to them. Cognitive behavioral work breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and actions and uses exercises to try new patterns that reduce distress.Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. She will discuss what feels most useful and adjust methods based on your goals, symptoms, and personal preferences. That conversation often happens in the first few sessions so work can begin with clear, realistic steps.
Online therapy makes it easier to fit sessions into a busy life. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation, phone sessions can be used when bandwidth or visual focus is an issue, and live chat or text messaging suit quick check-ins or people who prefer typed communication. These formats give flexibility for scheduling, shorter check-ins during a workday, and choices about how to engage in therapy.
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- 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
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Trichotillomania
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- Minnesota
- Languages
- English
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