Ayanna Mills
Compassionate counselor who builds practical skills
- Credentials
- LPC
- Experience
- 13 years
- Licensed in
- Missouri
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Ayanna
Ayanna Mills is a Licensed Professional Counselor who helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, relationship and intimacy concerns, and struggles with self-esteem. She also supports those dealing with addiction, trauma and abuse, anger, bipolar symptoms, career challenges, and compassion fatigue. Ayanna works from Missouri and draws on 13 years of experience in mental health care.
Her style is warm and direct. She aims to build trust quickly and speaks plainly about goals and next steps.
Background and approach
Sessions focus on practical skills and honest conversation rather than jargon. Ayanna centers the client’s experience and meets them where they are in making changes. Ayanna uses a mix of evidence-based methods.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps people identify unhelpful thoughts and change behaviors. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) emphasizes values-driven action and acceptance of difficult feelings. She also incorporates Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) ideas when relationships and attachment are involved.
In sessions she teaches concrete tools such as mindfulness practices and coping strategies. She also uses motivational interviewing to support readiness for change and to explore ambivalence around difficult decisions. The goal is to offer skills that can be used between sessions.
Ayanna earned her Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling and holds a Missouri LPC, number MO LPC 2019003930. She communicates in English and provides online formats including video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. To begin, a short questionnaire is used to match clients and schedule sessions.
Therapeutic approaches adapted for online care
Ayanna commonly uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in her online practice. CBT focuses on spotting unhelpful thoughts and trying new behaviors to reduce distress. It is useful for anxiety, depression, and practical problems like managing daily routines. ACT helps clients clarify personal values and take action even when uncomfortable feelings are present; it can support coping with life changes and persistent stress.She approaches choice of method as a collaborative process. The therapist and client review goals, preferences, and what has worked before, then try methods that feel like a good fit. Adjustments are made over time so the approach matches progress and changing needs.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to make therapy more flexible. These options let people connect from home, fit sessions around busy schedules, and use brief messaging for check-ins between meetings. Licensed professionals use these formats to deliver skill teaching, guided exercises, and ongoing coaching in ways that can fit daily life.
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
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Intimacy-related issues
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- 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
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 13 years
- Licensed
- Missouri
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Ayanna
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point