Frances Higgins, LICSW

Frances Higgins is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) with three decades of experience in mental health. She begins by listening closely to each person and then deciding, together, which approach will help most. Her work centers on thoughts and everyday habits as a way to change how people feel and act. Frances uses a client-centered stance, which means she follows the person's lead while offering structure when it helps. She draws on cognitive behavioral methods to spot and shift unhelpful thinking and patterns. She also brings in emotion-focused and attachment-aware ideas for people struggling with relationship pain and attachment wounds. She has long experience supporting people who have lived through physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, and she draws on trauma theory to guide symptom management and healing work. Frances also addresses stress, anxiety, depression, addiction-related concerns, grief, and challenges around intimacy and self-esteem. Her background includes work with adoption and foster care issues, attachment difficulties, autism and Asperger Syndrome, blended family concerns, and first responder stress. She helps people tackle communication problems, codependency, and parenting strain, using practical tools and clear conversation. Sessions focus on what feels useful right now. Frances blends strengths-based coaching with therapeutic skills so people can test new habits between meetings and notice real change over time.

How her approaches translate to online work

Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on how early relationships shape current connection patterns. In therapy this looks like noticing how someone bonds and trying new ways of relating to reduce loneliness and reactivity. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, targets everyday thoughts and habits. It helps people identify unhelpful thinking, test new beliefs, and build practical routines that change mood and behavior over time. Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. Frances listens to what matters most and tests methods together with each person. She adjusts goals and techniques based on how a person responds, so finding the best fit happens through conversation and small experiments. The original biography does not list specific online session formats, so confirm current options before booking. Many people find online work useful because it can fit into a busy day, remove travel time, and allow shorter check-ins when needed. Online sessions can make it easier to practice skills in real life between meetings and to bring examples from daily routines into the conversation. Frances uses practical exercises, thought-tracking, and attachment-focused conversation that translate well to virtual sessions, and she helps clients figure out which schedule and format will fit their lives.