Donna Altepeter, LCSW

Donna Altepeter is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who focuses on helping people cope with life changes and the stress that comes with them. She works with concerns like anxiety, depression, grief, caregiving strain, addictions, and relationship and parenting struggles. Her style is straightforward and collaborative, aimed at helping people find workable steps forward.

Donna brings many years of practice and teaching to her work. She has experience supporting people through serious illness, bereavement, and transitions across the lifespan. She emphasizes each person's strengths and believes people can change when given practical tools and support.

In sessions Donna blends client-centered listening with problem-focused techniques from cognitive behavioral approaches and mindfulness. She uses motivational interviewing to help people find reasons to change and narrative ideas to help people tell their story in new ways. The result is a mix of reflection, practical skills, and goal-focused planning.

Her background includes long experience in community mental health and more than two decades teaching social work at the University of Wisconsin. That teaching informs a collaborative learning approach in therapy where questions, skills practice, and feedback are part of the work.

Donna aims to partner with clients rather than direct them. She helps people identify priorities, try small changes, and adjust along the way. The focus is on usable strategies for day-to-day life and steady progress toward the goals that matter to each person.

How Donna’s Approaches Translate to Online Work

Donna uses client-centered work that starts with listening closely to what matters most to the person. That approach focuses on building goals together and adjusting the plan as needed to match each person's needs.

She also draws on cognitive behavioral therapy, which teaches practical skills to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and can help with anxiety, depression, sleep, and coping with stress. Mindfulness therapy is used to build attention to the present moment and reduce reactivity, which can support emotional regulation and stress management.

Choosing the right approach is part of the work. Donna treats selecting methods as a team effort and will help clients decide which strategies to try based on their goals, preferences, and what feels most useful in early sessions.

The profile does not list specific session formats, so please confirm available options when booking. Many people find online care helpful because it can fit into a workday, reduce travel, or make shorter check-ins easier to schedule. The emphasis is on making therapy practical and workable within everyday life while focusing on the approaches that best match each person's situation.