Joan O’Neill, MA, LPC

Adults of all ages

Trauma & Loss 

Joan brings significant life experience into her practice. Prior to becoming a therapist, she worked at an international consulting firm in both the United States and Germany and volunteered at numerous nonprofits throughout the Chicago area serving veterans, individuals with disabilities, and refugees. She was also a team leader on six international mission trips to help teens from the North Shore learn about other cultures. 

Joan’s work with her clients is trauma-informed, helping individuals recognize how various events from both their childhood and more recent past impact how they think, feel and act. She is certified in EMDR, grief education, mindfulness, and yoga, and uses the skills and knowledge acquired through these trainings to help her clients learn to regulate their emotions. Her goal is for every client to leave therapy feeling more balanced and empowered to direct their own lives. 

Understanding Trauma

Joan helps her clients understand how everyday life events can trigger a response that stems from past experiences. When an event is perceived by an individual as traumatic, the memory can become maladaptive, resulting in emotional dysregulation. Joan works with clients using a combination of CPT, mindfulness and EMDR to help clients become less emotionally reactive so they can respond more appropriately to what is happening in the present, leaving them feel calmer and more balanced. 

Recognizing the Stages of Grief and Loss

Joan helps her clients work through losses resulting from illness, death, infertility, breakups, divorce, relocation, jobs, and a variety of other situations where clients feel strong emotions related to the loss. When a client has lost a loved one, she helps the client separate the trauma of the death from the bereavement, processing each piece separately. Joan wants her clients to be able to recognize the stages of grief as they experience them, and to understand that there is no such thing as a “normal” timeframe or way to process grief. 

 

Using Mindfulness to Cope

Joan has used mindfulness both personally and professionally for many years to cope with changes in her life, our community, and the world we live in. She helps her clients build a “mindfulness toolkit” to access when life becomes stressful and helps them see the lifetime benefits for both physical and mental health of developing an ongoing mindfulness practice. 

For fun …

Joan has raised five Leader Dog puppies for the blind, one of which was “career-changed” to work as a therapy dog, visiting schools and hospitals. She is currently raising a Golden puppy that is a therapy dog-in-training! Joan has a passion for yoga and earned her teaching certificate during the pandemic. She also loves the outdoors, spending most vacations hiking, skiing, bicycling, kayaking, and swimming.

To book an appointment call (847) 919-9096 ext. 1

or email hello@inspirecounselingcenter.com.

To reach Joan directly, call (847) 919-9096 ext. 49 or joan@inspirecounselingcenter.com