Brenda Hanson
Experienced Kansas clinician focused on practical support
- Credentials
- LSCSW, LISW
- Experience
- 41 years
- Licensed in
- Kansas, Iowa
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Brenda
Brenda Hanson is a licensed social worker in Kansas who helps people facing stress, anxiety, grief, addiction, and life changes. She brings 41 years of clinical experience to conversations that often feel heavy and confusing. Her style is warm and straightforward, aimed at helping someone feel heard and find practical steps forward.
In sessions she focuses on what matters day to day. She listens to what is most urgent, then offers simple tools to manage emotions and improve coping.
Background and approach
She draws from methods that teach new ways to think and act when old patterns get in the way. Brenda uses cognitive behavioral ideas to spot unhelpful thoughts and try new behaviors. She also applies attachment-based thinking to look at how early relationships shape reactions now.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people notice difficult feelings without getting stuck, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy offers clear skills for managing intense emotions. Her background includes work with a wide range of concerns such as depression, trauma and abuse, parenting issues, intimacy-related problems, and compassion fatigue. She also addresses topics like body image, caregiver stress, chronic illness, and blended family issues.
Brenda holds the Kansas Licensed Specialist Clinical Social Worker credential and the Iowa Licensed Independent Social Worker credential. People who reach out can expect a calm, practical conversation aimed at small, achievable changes. She combines steady experience with plain language to help clients move through hard moments and toward clearer choices.
Therapy approaches that translate to online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people notice painful thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them. It focuses on values and small committed actions that move someone toward what matters. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at the link between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and teaches simple experiments to change unhelpful patterns. Attachment-Based Therapy examines how early bonds affect current relationships and reactions, helping people understand and shift repeating patterns.Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist talks with the client about goals, preferences, and what feels most useful, then together they try one or two methods and adjust as needed. That collaborative process helps match techniques to real life needs rather than forcing a single method.
Online sessions can be done by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different schedules and comfort levels. These formats make it easier to attend from home, manage caregiving or work demands, and keep momentum between sessions. Brenda uses these options to offer flexible, ongoing support while focusing on practical skills and real-world changes.
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.
Attachment-Based Therapy
Looks at how early bonds shaped what you expect from closeness, and how that plays out now with a partner, a parent, or your own children.
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.
Frequently asked questions
What kinds of problems does Brenda address?
What is her general therapy style?
How much clinical experience does she have?
What are her credentials and where is she based?
Which languages are sessions offered in?
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What formats are available for sessions?
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Systemic Therapy
- Experience
- 41 years
- Licensed
- Kansas, Iowa
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Brenda
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point