About Emily
Emily Materdo is an LCSW with 13 years of clinical and medical social work experience. She helps people who are feeling overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, depression, mood disorders, trauma, and caregiver strain. Her tone is direct and practical, and she aims to make therapy feel manageable for busy, worried people.
She takes a person-centered, collaborative approach. Sessions focus on understanding how a person's home and community shape current struggles. Emily works to create an inviting space where people can say what brought them in without pressure.
Background and approach
Emily blends several therapy methods to match a person's needs. She uses cognitive behavioral tools to spot unhelpful thinking. She includes acceptance and commitment ideas to help people live by their values.
She also draws on attachment-focused work to look at relational patterns. Her background includes clinical and medical social work across a wide age range and in varied settings. That experience informs how she addresses complex trauma, chronic illness, caregiver burden, and transitions into adulthood.
She aims to offer new perspectives and practical steps toward change. In sessions people can expect to set clear goals and try small, doable experiments between meetings. Emily emphasizes self-compassion and helping people recognize their own strengths.
The work is collaborative, pacing changes to what feels realistic for each person.
Therapeutic approaches for online sessions
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) encourages people to notice difficult thoughts and feelings while committing to actions that match their values. It can help when anxiety or low mood gets in the way of daily life. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on spotting patterns of thought and behavior that make stress and anxiety worse and then testing small, practical changes to shift those patterns. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships affect current ways of relating and can be useful for people struggling with trust, closeness, or repeated relationship problems.Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the work. Emily will collaborate with each person to decide which methods fit their goals and preferences. That may mean trying skills-based CBT tools one week and working on attachment patterns the next, adjusting as progress is made.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video lets people use visual cues and longer conversation time. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or when someone prefers not to be on camera. Live chat and text messaging work for brief check-ins, homework, or moments when a shorter touchpoint is more practical. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a busy schedule and to continue work between meetings.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Bipolar disorder
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Blended family issues
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- First responder issues
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Post-traumatic stress
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 13 years
- Licensed
- North Carolina
- Languages
- English
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