Depression and Low Mood Therapy In-person and Online
Foster Counseling and Therapy provides individual therapy to adolescents, teens, and adults specializing in patterns of depression as well as stress, life changes, loss, childhood emotional neglect and trauma that can contribute to patterns of low energy, low mood, fawning, hopelessness and shame. In-person services are accessible to the communities of Lake in the Hills, Algonquin, Crystal Lake, Huntley, Sycamore, DeKalb and McHenry counties, and online services are provided throughout Illinois.
What Depression Looks Like
Persistent Sadness or Low Mood
Feeling down, empty, or tearful most days can be a hallmark symptom of depression. Many people describe it as a “cloud” that doesn’t lift, even when life is going okay. If this low mood is affecting your work, relationships, or daily functioning, depression counseling or individual therapy can help you identify patterns, build coping skills, and start feeling more like yourself.
Changes in Sleep
Feeling exhausted even after rest, moving slower, or struggling to get through basic tasks can be a major sign of depression. This can look like “laziness” from the outside, but internally it often feels like your body is heavy and your mind is drained. Depression counseling can help you create realistic routines, reduce overwhelm, and regain energy through structured, supportive therapy.
Loss of Interest or Pleasure
Depression often shows up as losing interest in things you used to enjoy—hobbies, social time, intimacy, or even small everyday pleasures. You might withdraw from friends or feel numb rather than sad. Working with a licensed therapist through depression therapy can help you reconnect with values, rebuild motivation, and reduce emotional blunting over time.
Foggy Brain
Depression can make it hard to focus, remember details, or make choices—sometimes called “brain fog.” You might reread the same email repeatedly or feel stuck trying to decide even small things. Working with a mental health therapist can help reduce cognitive overload, improve emotional regulation, and build practical strategies for concentration and decision-making.
Changes in Sleep
Trouble falling asleep, waking frequently, waking too early, or sleeping far more than usual are common depression symptoms. Poor sleep can make anxiety and depression feel worse, creating a cycle that’s hard to break alone. Therapy for depression and anxiety can address sleep routines, stress triggers, and thoughts that keep your nervous system stuck in “on” mode.
Apathy and Hopelessness
Feeling depressed can look like staring at the future and thinking “what’s the point?” Perhaps you feel like you’ve become disillusioned with life, can no longer believe in the good of the world, or can’t even stand it anymore so you’ve mentally checked out and are just going through the motions each day, isolating and exhausted by the same patterns. Connecting with a therapist can help you to remember what you stand for, what feels important, and what can reignite your desire to live.
How Depression Therapy Can Help
Depression therapy helps give you a safe, supportive space to understand what’s driving your symptoms and how depression is impacting your thoughts, feelings, patterns, relationships, and experiences of daily life. With guidance from your therapist, you not only will learn practical skills to improve your sense of agency, alignment, and hopefulness in everyday life again, but will also be guided in discovering insight into what contributes to your depressive patterns and views of self, others and the world. Therapy also helps you to understand your connections with others and build lasting resilience for enriching your connections—a significant contributor not only to our mood but to our overall wellness throughout our lives.
Our Depression Specialists
Sarah Pottle
Sarah works with depression through a trauma-informed lens approach, helping you to understand underlying events, relationships, behaviors and messages in life that contribute to your depression and outlook in life. She assists you in identifying your parts through IFS work, and connects you with values to re-align you with the life you want to live.
Licensed Professional Counselor
Krupa Desai
Krupa provides you a safe space to identify patterns both internally and externally contributing to your low mood and helps you to recognize narratives and parts of yourself involved in the ongoing struggle. She utilizes a trauma-informed lens to promote insight around past experiences and equips you with tools to identify and heal unhelpful patterns.
Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor
Gwyn provides an inviting atmosphere and provides direct guidance in exploring unhelpful thought and behavior patterns contributing to ongoing experiences of depression and low mood. Past experiences contributing to view of self and others are explored through a trauma-informed lens. She encourages workable action to access mood stabilization and connection with hopefulness.
Licensed Social WorkerGwyn Golembiewski
Katie Higgins
Katie works with depression to understand the patterns of both the present and the past that continue to contribute to ongoing feelings of ennui, shame and despondency. Through a trauma-informed lens, she supports exploration of attachments, past impactful events and systems that have influenced your sense of self to promote insight and attain lasting healing.
Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor