About Tamela
Tamela Polanin welcomes people seeking clearer coping strategies and healing from past wounds, offering an experienced, steady presence for those navigating stress, anxiety, trauma, grief, addiction, mood concerns, and relationship or intimacy-related struggles.
Background and approach
With 20 years in mental health and an Illinois LCPC (IL LCPC 180.012372), Tamela blends practical, evidence-informed techniques with a client-focused stance so clients steer the pace and direction of their work.
Her style emphasizes collaboration and empowerment: she listens for each person’s priorities and tailors interventions such as cognitive behavioral strategies, dialectical skills, emotionally focused work, and EMDR to address symptoms and underlying patterns.
Tamela also brings attention to issues like parenting, career transitions, self-esteem, ADHD, compassion fatigue, and many attachment and family-related concerns, drawing on varied approaches to match the presenting need.
Outside of practice she balances life in rural Illinois with family and hands-on caregiving, and she invites clients to approach therapy as a partnership aimed at practical change and deeper understanding. Prospective clients who value a warm, experienced clinician and a collaborative path toward healing may find her approach a good fit.
Therapeutic approaches and online care
Tamela often combines client-centered care with targeted methods such as EMDR and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Client-centered therapy emphasizes a collaborative relationship where the client sets priorities and the therapist provides empathic support and guidance to explore values and choices. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on identifying and changing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors to reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress, and to build practical coping skills. EMDR is a trauma-focused technique that helps process distressing memories and reduce their emotional intensity, which can be useful for people coping with past abuse, loss, or other traumatic events.
Choosing the right approach is part of the therapeutic journey, and Tamela works with each person to determine what fits best based on their goals, symptoms, and preferences. She frames treatment as a collaborative process, combining approaches when helpful and adjusting strategies as progress unfolds.
Online therapy with this practice offers flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging, allowing people to engage from different locations and schedules. These formats make it easier to maintain continuity of care during life changes, reduce commute time, and match communication styles to individual comfort levels, while retaining the structured support of licensed professionals.
Frequently asked questions
What concerns does this therapist commonly address?
What therapeutic style can I expect in sessions?
How much clinical experience does she have?
What credentials and licensure are held and where is she located?
Can nonlocal or international clients access her services?
Which session formats are available for online work?
How are fees and subscriptions handled?
What steps are required to begin therapy?
Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English