Diana Elstad
Caring guidance for families and life changes
- Credentials
- LMHC
- Experience
- 35 years
- Licensed in
- Washington
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Diana
Diana Elstad is a licensed mental health counselor with 35 years of experience. She works with people facing addiction and recovery, depression, anxiety, trauma and abuse, relationship struggles, grief, parenting concerns, and many life transitions. Her approach is warm and straightforward, aimed at helping families and individuals find practical ways forward.
She listens for what is said and what is not said. Diana makes space for difficult feelings and helps clients name the worries beneath them.
Background and approach
Sessions are conversational and focused on small, doable changes that add up over time. Her training spans several therapeutic methods. She draws on client-centered work to build trust, cognitive behavioral techniques to shift thoughts and behaviors, and dialectical skills to manage strong emotions.
She may also use motivational interviewing to support change and narrative therapy to help people reframe their stories. Diana’s background includes work in community clinics, treatment centers, hospitals, and independent practice across Washington. That range shaped a practical style that values clarity and respect.
She describes herself as kind, attentive, and present in the room. Parents worried about family dynamics or a sudden life change will find concrete tools and steady support. Diana aims to help people improve communication, cope with stress, and rebuild routines that support wellbeing.
She welcomes questions and works at a pace that fits each person’s needs.
Therapy approaches and how they work online
Client-centered therapy focuses on listening closely and creating a nonjudgmental space. It helps people feel heard and safer to talk about hard subjects, which can be especially useful for family and parenting concerns.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts and actions affect feelings. It uses simple exercises and small behavior changes to reduce anxiety, depression, and day-to-day stressors.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, DBT, teaches practical skills for managing intense emotions and improving communication. These tools can help when people face crises, strong anger, or repeated relationship patterns.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist collaborates with each person to choose methods that fit their needs, goals, and preferences. Plans are adjusted over time based on what helps.
Online therapy offers flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. That range makes it easier to fit sessions around parenting, work, and busy days. Video allows face-to-face conversation, while chat and messaging can be useful for brief check-ins or skill reminders between longer sessions.
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
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 35 years
- Licensed
- Washington
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Diana
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point