Tara Wagner, LCSW

Tara Wagner is a licensed clinical social worker practicing in Indiana. She brings 12 years of experience across inpatient, outpatient, medication-assisted treatment, and academic settings. Tara focuses on helping people who are struggling with addiction, trauma, depression, anxiety, and related concerns. She approaches each person with respect, sensitivity, and compassion.

People meet Tara with many different goals. She often helps with self-esteem, coping with life changes, grief, relationship and intimacy issues, and anger. She also supports those dealing with complex or co-occurring concerns such as bipolar disorder, personality-related issues, dissociation, and substance use challenges.

Her style is practical and person-focused. Tara frames sessions around what the client wants to change and adapts the process as needs evolve. She uses clear, goal-oriented conversation and helps people identify steps they can try between sessions.

Tara uses a range of approaches, including cognitive behavioral techniques, client-centered methods, motivational interviewing, psychodynamic ideas, and solution-focused strategies. She draws on these to match interventions to a person's situation rather than using a single fixed method.

Clients can expect a collaborative relationship that recognizes their worth. Tara tailors plans to each person's history and strengths, and she highlights small, achievable changes alongside longer-term work.

How Tara’s Approach Translates to Online Therapy

Online sessions with Tara commonly draw on cognitive behavioral strategies and client-centered methods to address practical problems and emotional patterns. Cognitive behavioral work helps people notice thought and behavior patterns, try small experiments, and develop coping skills for anxiety, depression, and addiction. Client-centered work emphasizes listening, validation, and pacing the conversation around what the person values and wants to change.

She also uses motivational interviewing when clients want help finding or strengthening their motivation for change. That approach focuses on exploring ambivalence and building reasons to take steps toward recovery or healthier habits. These methods are selected together with the client so the plan fits their goals and preferences rather than being imposed from the start.

Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging, which give flexibility for different needs. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation for in-depth work, phone sessions can be simpler when bandwidth is limited, live chat is handy for quick check-ins, and messaging supports brief updates or reflections between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, or other routines while keeping the focus on practical progress.