Dawn Tostenson
Calm, practical therapy for everyday struggles
- Credentials
- LIMHP
- Experience
- 6 years
- Licensed in
- Nebraska
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Dawn
Dawn Tostenson is a licensed independent mental health practitioner who uses a person-centered approach to help people sort through tough emotions. She draws on practical, evidence-based methods to address problems such as depression, anxiety, trauma, and addiction. Dawn keeps sessions direct and compassionate, aiming to help people make steady, manageable changes in daily life.
Her work blends clear skill-building with attention to each person’s story. She uses tools from cognitive behavioral therapy to challenge unhelpful thoughts.
Background and approach
She also incorporates dialectical behavior therapy and mindfulness techniques to manage intense feelings and build coping skills. With six years of clinical experience, Dawn brings steady, calm support to people facing life transitions, grief, sleep problems, or compassion fatigue. She pays attention to relationship patterns, intimacy-related concerns, and issues tied to identity, including LGBT matters.
She also addresses practical struggles like career stress, parenting pressures, and substance-related problems. Dawn accepts clients in Nebraska and conducts work in English. Her credential is LIMHP, which stands for Licensed Independent Mental Health Practitioner.
She frames progress as a collaborative effort and focuses on skills that can be practiced between sessions. People who choose Dawn can expect straightforward conversations about goals and step-by-step plans for change. She helps identify patterns, teaches coping strategies, and supports clients as they try new ways of handling old problems.
The approach is steady, focused, and geared toward real-life improvements.
Therapeutic approaches and online care
Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and understanding each person’s experience. It emphasizes respect and collaboration so the therapist follows the client’s pace and priorities. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, teaches practical skills to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and is useful for anxiety, depression, and stress management. Dialectical behavior therapy, DBT, offers tools for handling intense emotions and improving coping skills, often through skills training in mindfulness and distress tolerance.Choosing the right approach is part of the work. Dawn will discuss options and adapt techniques based on a person’s goals, needs, and preferences. That collaborative process helps clarify which methods will be most helpful and how to combine them during sessions.
Online therapy makes these approaches accessible through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. These formats offer flexibility for busy schedules and for people who prefer remote sessions. They allow consistent check-ins, practice of skills between meetings, and the ability to fit therapy into daily life without long travel times.
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.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Concrete skills for riding out strong emotion, tolerating distress, and handling relationships without things escalating. The skills are practised in daily life, so between-session support by message or phone fits naturally.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Postpartum depression
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trichotillomania
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 6 years
- Licensed
- Nebraska
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Dawn
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point