Life Transitions Counseling,PLLC

Life Transitions Counseling,PLLC Debra Alper is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Chicago specializing in relational therapy and divorce recovery.

Life Transitions Counseling offers supportive insight oriented therapy for individuals and couples navigating complex relationships
• Relationship trauma & Emotional Abuse
• Self Esteem and disconnect issues
• Divorce and divorce recovery. She has worked extensively since 1999 with individual clients striving to experience deeper, more meaningful relationships, couples in the midst of marital cri

sis around infidelity and unhappy, lonely relationships, and clients struggling to get through the emotional, and life changing hurdles of pre and post-divorce. Debra Alper received her undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and her Masters in Social Work from Loyola University, Chicago. She has received specialized training in Gottman Marital Therapy, Harville Hendrix Imago Therapy, and she participated in a yearlong weekly seminar from the University of Chicago on Psychodynamic Theory. Debra has volunteered with various literacy organizations around Chicago, most recently working with Sit Stay Read, combining her passion for reading, children and dogs. Debra resides in Chicago living happily 3 blocks away from her only daughter, and sharing her home with her beloved rescue Maltese Lilly. When Debra is not working, or dog walking, you can find her at her favorite yoga class, taking a long walk on the lakefront, traveling (preferably in Italy) or cooking.

04/20/2026
04/19/2026

Nobody talks about the gap between knowing you need to leave and actually being able to. That gap is real. And understanding it is where the work begins.

Jillian Turecki posted this, and I think it is so important for everyone in a relationship, wanting a relationship, or n...
04/18/2026

Jillian Turecki posted this, and I think it is so important for everyone in a relationship, wanting a relationship, or navigating the beginnings of relationship to read and understand

04/17/2026

Most people expect the moment of clarity to feel like something big. A confrontation, a breaking point, a dramatic realization. But that’s not usually how it happens. It comes quietly, in an ordinary moment, when something just stops making sense the way it used to. That shift — however small it feels — is not nothing. It’s actually everything.

04/15/2026

The part that keeps people stuck isn’t that the relationship was bad. It’s that it wasn’t bad the whole time. The beginning is what they’re holding onto, and it was real. That distinction matters more than most people realize.
If this landed for you, share it with someone who’s still trying to make sense of why leaving feels impossible.

03/30/2026

As always, Divorced Girl Smiling podcast are full of important information.

At some point you begin to feel it.The relationship is changing. The warmth isn’t as certain as it once was.And yet many...
03/16/2026

At some point you begin to feel it.

The relationship is changing. The warmth isn’t as certain as it once was.

And yet many people don’t leave in that moment. Instead, they often try harder. They try to get back to the connection they remember from the beginning.

This is one of the earliest moments where attachment can quietly begin to pull someone back toward the relationship.

Sometimes the hardest relationships to leave aren’t the ones where love was never there.They’re the ones where the conne...
03/13/2026

Sometimes the hardest relationships to leave aren’t the ones where love was never there.

They’re the ones where the connection felt powerful in the beginning, and you keep hoping that version will come back.

These are some of the patterns people often describe when a relationship starts to feel addictive.

Address

Telehealth
Chicago, IL
60610

Opening Hours

Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 1pm - 7pm
Thursday 12pm - 7pm
Saturday 9am - 1pm

Telephone

+17739317220

Website

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Debra Alper is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Chicago specializing in relational therapy and divorce recovery. She has worked extensively since 1999 with individual clients striving to experience deeper, more meaningful relationships, couples in the midst of marital crisis around infidelity and unhappy, lonely relationships, and clients struggling to get through the emotional, and life changing hurdles of pre and post-divorce. Debra Alper received her undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and her Masters in Social Work from Loyola University, Chicago. She has received specialized training in Gottman Marital Therapy, Harville Hendrix Imago Therapy, and she participated in a yearlong weekly seminar from the University of Chicago on Psychodynamic Theory. Debra has volunteered with various literacy organizations around Chicago, most recently working with Sit Stay Read, combining her passion for reading, children and dogs. Debra resides in Chicago living happily 3 blocks away from her only daughter, and sharing her home with her beloved rescue Maltese Lilly. When Debra is not working, or dog walking, you can find her at her favorite yoga class, taking a long walk on the lakefront, traveling (preferably in Italy) or cooking.