Tory Koetterhagen, LCSW

Tory Koetterhagen is a licensed clinical social worker who uses clear, goal-focused methods to help people manage stress and anxiety. She draws on seven years of clinical experience and focuses on practical steps clients can try between sessions. Tory presents herself as supportive and straightforward in session.

She helps people cope with grief and loss and works with concerns around low self-esteem and depression. Tory also assists those facing life transitions and questions about purpose or motivation. Her approach is built around short-term skills and steady progress rather than vague promises.

Tory often uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to identify unhelpful thinking and replace it with workable alternatives. She also brings techniques from Dialectical Behavior Therapy to help with emotional regulation and from Solution-Focused Therapy to set clear, achievable goals. These approaches guide a down-to-earth plan tailored to each person.

Sessions center on practical tools, such as changing unhelpful thoughts, learning emotion-management skills, and creating small action steps. Clients can expect room to talk openly and specific strategies to try outside sessions. Tory emphasizes respect, sensitivity, and steady support throughout the process.

Her additional focus areas include aging and geriatric concerns, communication and family problems, forgiveness, guilt and shame, hospice and end-of-life counseling, multicultural issues, seasonal affective disorder, self-love, women's issues, and young adult concerns. She is based in Wisconsin and conducts work in English.

Online approaches that teach skills and reach goals

CBT, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, focuses on spotting unhelpful thoughts and changing day-to-day patterns that keep problems going. It is useful for anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and stress by turning insights into concrete changes.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy emphasizes emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness. It teaches specific skills to manage strong emotions and to improve communication when feelings run high.

Finding the right fit is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to decide which approach or mix of methods best matches their goals, needs, and preferences. That choice can change over time as progress is tracked and goals are refined.

Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy easier to fit into a busy life. Video lets people use visual cues and longer conversation, phone works for lower bandwidth or when audio-only suits someone better, and live chat or messaging can support brief check-ins or step-by-step skill practice between calls. These formats make it possible to continue steady, skills-based work without frequent travel and to pick the option that fits a person's schedule and day-to-day routine.