Anna Murphy
Compassionate practical therapy for everyday struggles
- Credentials
- LMHC
- Experience
- 9 years
- Licensed in
- Iowa
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Anna
Anna Murphy is a licensed mental health counselor in Iowa who focuses on practical help for people facing stress, anxiety, grief, and life changes. She writes in plain terms and works to make therapy feel approachable. Her style is warm and interactive, and she expects clients to be the experts on their own lives.
Anna aims to teach coping skills that fit each person’s situation. Before becoming an LMHC, Anna earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Iowa in Psychology and Studio Arts with a Sociology minor.
Background and approach
She completed a Master of Science in Art Therapy and Counseling at The College of New Rochelle in 2015. She has about nine years of overall clinical experience across multiple settings. Her work history includes psychiatric hospitals, schools, community mental health centers, and personal agencies.
That range gave her practice with persistent mental health concerns, mood and anxiety disorders, trauma, substance use, and grief. She also has experience supporting people through major life transitions and caregiving stress. Anna combines several evidence-informed methods in sessions.
She draws on cognitive behavioral ideas for changing thought patterns and dialectical behavior skills for emotion regulation. She also uses client-centered principles and can incorporate expressive art activities when it seems helpful. Sessions are offered in English and delivered online by video, phone, live chat, or text messaging.
Fees vary with location and therapist availability and are billed through a subscription that can be canceled at any time. To begin, a person completes a short matching questionnaire and schedules a session through the Start Therapy button.
How Anna’s approaches translate to online therapy
Anna uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing in ways that translate well to remote sessions. CBT focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing new ways of thinking and behaving, which can be practiced between sessions and tracked during video or text visits. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps clients name values and take small committed actions toward them while learning to tolerate difficult feelings; exercises and values work can be done during phone or chat sessions. EMDR is an approach for processing traumatic memories; when appropriate, components of EMDR can be adapted for telehealth with careful preparation and pacing.Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will discuss what feels most useful based on the person’s goals, symptoms, and comfort with different methods. Decisions about techniques are collaborative and can change as progress is made.
Online formats offer practical benefits like scheduling flexibility and easier access from home or work. Video calls let the therapist and client work face to face, phone sessions reduce screen time, and live chat or text messaging can be helpful for brief check-ins or practicing skills between sessions. These options make it simpler to fit therapy into a busy life while using evidence-informed methods.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Less about arguing with difficult thoughts, more about loosening their grip and acting on what matters to you anyway. Values and committed action carry the work, which suits conversation at a distance.
Client-Centered Therapy
The direction comes from you rather than from a set programme. The therapist offers a warm, non-judgemental space to think out loud and work at your own pace. Online, this rests on the relationship rather than on being in the same room.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT looks at the link between what you think, how you feel, and what you do. You work on noticing unhelpful patterns and practising steadier responses. It suits online sessions well, because much of the work happens between appointments and can be talked through from anywhere.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 9 years
- Licensed
- Iowa
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Anna
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point