About Cathy
Cathy Nau welcomes people seeking relief from stress, anxiety, depression, grief, trauma, ADHD, and burnout. She helps clients set small, realistic goals and take the first steps toward feeling better. Cathy combines practical tools with steady support so people can move through difficult changes and regain a sense of control.
Cathy is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Washington with 29 years of experience. She has worked in a variety of settings and has supported people dealing with career strain, compassion fatigue, mood concerns, and caregiver stress.
Background and approach
Her background includes work related to cancer, hospice and end-of-life counseling, and issues faced by veterans and first responders. In sessions she uses clear, down-to-earth methods drawn from cognitive behavioral techniques, acceptance and commitment ideas, dialectical behavior strategies, and emotion-focused work. Sessions focus on skill building for coping, communication, and managing strong feelings.
She also emphasizes understanding attachment and patterns that keep people stuck. Cathy takes a client-centered stance, listening first and then offering tools that match each person’s needs. That might mean practical behavior changes, mindfulness exercises, or emotion-focused conversations about relationships and meaning.
Her style is warm, steady, and goal oriented. People who choose Cathy can expect straightforward talk, small actionable steps, and attention to both immediate relief and long-term change. Her approach aims to make hard moments more manageable while helping clients build habits that support lasting progress.
Online approaches that focus on skills and values
The therapist uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help people notice what matters to them and take committed steps toward those values, even when emotions are difficult. ACT can be useful for anxiety, depression, and life changes by shifting focus from avoidance to action.She also draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which looks at patterns of thoughts and behaviors and teaches concrete skills to change them. CBT helps with anxiety, mood concerns, stress, and many everyday challenges. Emotionally-Focused Therapy is used to identify and work through strong feelings so they cause less distress and improve relationships.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t helped in the past. Together they decide which methods to try and adjust them over time based on progress and feedback.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to fit different needs. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues, phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited, and messaging or live chat can work for brief check-ins or skill practice. These options make scheduling more flexible and help people keep therapy consistent around work and family life.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Eating and food-related issues
- First responder issues
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Mood disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Experience
- 29 years
- Licensed
- Washington
- Languages
- English