About Lara
Lara Ashbaugh is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) practicing in Missouri who focuses on practical help for stress, anxiety, depression, and ADHD. She uses clear, interactive therapy to help people manage emotions and daily challenges. Lara aims to create a respectful and nonjudgmental space where people can work toward more satisfying routines and relationships.
With ten years of experience, she draws on cognitive-behavioral methods and acceptance and commitment ideas to build skills that fit each person’s life.
Background and approach
Sessions often include learning concrete coping tools, noticing unhelpful thinking patterns, and setting small goals that add up over time. She also uses dialectical behavior therapy skills when strong emotions or relationship patterns get in the way. Lara pays attention to strengths and what is already working.
She will ask about values, goals, and practical roadblocks. Therapy is collaborative - she helps people test new habits and adjust approaches if something isn’t working. People who have faced trauma, abuse, grief, addiction, or ongoing stress may find sessions focus on emotion regulation and steady skill building.
Lara has experience addressing a wide range of concerns including parenting stress, career pressure, body image, and identity issues such as gender dysphoria. Her style is warm and interactive, with an emphasis on respect and sensitivity. She tailors conversations and plans to each person’s needs, and supports gradual, meaningful change.
Using practical therapies online to build daily skills
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice what matters to them and take small steps toward those values. It uses exercises and simple experiments to shift how thoughts and feelings influence action, which can help with motivation and focus.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors connect, and teaches concrete tools for changing unhelpful thinking and action patterns. CBT is often used for anxiety, depression, and everyday stress by practicing new ways of coping between sessions.
Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, preferred ways of working, and what has or hasn’t helped before. Together they try methods, check progress, and adjust the plan so it fits real life.
Online therapy offers flexible ways to connect. Video calls let people use visual cues and work through skills together. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging make it possible to send updates, get coaching between sessions, or have brief check-ins without scheduling a full call. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules and practice skills where problems actually occur.
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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