About Our Counseling Practice

With over 30 years of experience, Debra Stern & Associates provides professional counseling services to individuals, couples, and families. As licensed professional therapists, we use the therapeutic process to guide clients towards personal and professional success and well-being.  Believing that people are limited only by self-imposed barriers, we help you discover the powerful resources within while providing practical, straightforward solutions to everyday problems. Our Licensed Clinical Social Workers and Marriage and Family Therapists treat a wide variety of issues in our three office locations, Chicago, Oak Park, IL, Naperville, Illinois, and surrounding areas.  Individual, Family, and Marital/Couples Therapy Services are available and provided by skilled and experienced therapists. We have evening and weekend hours to make it easy to schedule both emergency and non-emergent appointments.

Our experienced counselors provide our clients with a safe, caring, non-judgmental, and confidential environment to explore the many complex issues facing individuals on a daily basis. Individual Therapy is a collaborative process between client and therapist to help the client gain insight, develop new coping skills, heal emotional wounds and gain a sense of well being and improved mental health. Our trained therapists can work with you on a one-on-one basis to help you deal with such issues as depression, anxiety, childhood trauma, grief and loss, self-esteem, work/life balance, relationship issues, and life transitions. Our goal is to help facilitate change by empowering our clients to improve their quality of life.

In today’s fast-paced world, families face a variety of challenges in their everyday lives. Family Counseling is often recommended to help family members learn more positive ways to communicate and resolve problems. Our professionals work with family members to build understanding and be more responsive to the needs of each other, helping to strengthen family bonds.  Improving relationships and decreasing conflict with your spouse, children or other family members is often the goal of family counseling.  Our trained counselors can provide tools to help your family cope with such problems as parent/child conflict, addictions, grief and loss, mental illness, behavioral, social or emotional problems, divorce, stepfamily/blended family issues, and adoption. We are here to help you get through the stressful times and maintain loving relationships.

Transform lives today with family counseling!

If you are experiencing problems in your marriage or with your significant other, Couples Therapy may be a good option for you. Seeking help is a better option than ignoring the problems you’re facing and hoping they will improve on their own. After an initial assessment, Debra Stern & Associates will work with you to establish goals and a plan to work towards strengthening your relationship. Our couples counselors can provide tools that empower couples to overcome a wide range of issues couples face. We address such issues as communication problems, sexual difficulties, infidelity, conflicts with child-rearing, anger and domestic abuse, infertility, divorce, and blended family issues. We have worked with hundreds of couples who want help to resolve conflict, strengthen bonds or just simply need help to gain a better understanding of each other. Our experienced marriage therapists can help couples who want help to iron out their differences before getting married or are looking for tools to improve a troubled relationship or just want to solidify their relationship to avoid future difficulties. Working with an individual or couple to make the painful decision to separate and/or divorce is another way that our therapists can help.