Donna Altepeter, LCSW

Donna Altepeter is an LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) who earned her MSW from St. Louis University in 1983 with a concentration in community mental health. She has practiced since 1983 and brings long professional and life experience to her work, combining a client-centered stance with a skill set that includes cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy. Donna has extensive experience supporting people facing life-threatening illness, bereavement and loss, and major life transitions, and she holds strong clinical skills in addressing anxiety and depression.

She works with clients across the lifespan and approaches therapy with a fundamental belief in each person’s capacity for change. Donna frames therapy as a collaborative partnership rooted in mutual teaching and learning, drawing on more than twenty years of experience teaching in the University of Wisconsin Social Work program. That educator background informs a practical, exploratory style that values the client as the expert on their own life. Donna aims to guide clients through discovery, growth, and renewed coping as a respectful partner in the therapeutic journey.

Therapeutic Approaches for Online Care

Donna integrates client-centered therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and mindfulness tools into her online practice. Client-centered therapy emphasizes empathic listening and building a collaborative relationship that respects the client’s own knowledge and goals - it is helpful for life transitions, grief, self-esteem, and relationship concerns. CBT focuses on identifying and changing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors; it is widely used for anxiety, depression, sleep difficulties, and coping with stress. Mindfulness therapy teaches present-moment awareness and practical strategies to reduce reactivity and build resilience, which can support stress management, compassion fatigue, and emotional regulation.

Finding the right approach is part of the therapeutic process, and Donna works collaboratively with each person to tailor methods to their needs, goals, and preferences. She draws on her teaching and clinical experience to explain options and adjust techniques as the work unfolds.

Online sessions offer flexible ways to engage - video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging - making it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules, manage mobility or caregiving limits, and maintain continuity of care. These options allow licensed professionals to deliver consistent, accessible support while adapting to each client’s daily life.