About Frances
Frances Merz is a Licensed Professional Counselor in New Jersey with 19 years of clinical experience. She meets people where they are and helps them make practical changes. Many come for help with anxiety, stress, self-esteem, career questions, or life transitions.
Frances uses straightforward methods chosen to match each person's needs. She works from several counseling approaches and picks techniques that fit the individual. Sessions focus on solving problems, building coping skills, and clarifying goals.
Background and approach
She commonly helps people manage sleeping trouble, grief, trauma and abuse, and compassion fatigue. Frances has experience supporting people facing medical concerns around surgery and ongoing health care. She helps clients prepare questions for medical providers, think through options, and cope with medical systems from a practical perspective.
That background grew from long personal involvement with medical care. College students and young adults seeking direction or help with transitions are often comfortable working with her. She also supports people dealing with parenting stress, social anxiety, seasonal mood changes, and challenges related to attention and mood disorders.
Counseling is framed as a team effort. Frances does not use a one-size-fits-all plan; she tailors techniques to strengths and limits. She communicates Monday through Thursday and typically replies to messages within 24 hours.
Her practice emphasizes clear goals, steady progress, and real-world strategies to help people move forward.
How Frances uses CBT and Solution-Focused work online
Frances commonly draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which looks at the link between thoughts, feelings, and actions. CBT helps people break unhelpful thinking patterns, develop coping skills, and change behaviors that keep anxiety or low mood active. She also uses Solution-Focused Therapy, which narrows in on practical steps and small changes that move a person toward their goals. This approach is useful when someone wants quick strategies and clearer short-term direction.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Frances discusses options with each person and chooses methods based on needs, goals, and preferences. She treats the process as a collaboration and adjusts techniques when something isn't helping.
Online formats offer practical flexibility. Video calls allow full conversation and visual connection, phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited, live chat supports shorter check-ins or structured exercises, and text-based messaging can keep progress moving between sessions. These options make it easier to fit counseling into a busy schedule while focusing on skills, problem solving, and steady progress.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Self esteem
- Career difficulties
Also listed
- ADHD
- Bipolar disorder
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Grief
- Life purpose
- Parenting issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 19 years
- Licensed
- New Jersey
- Languages
- English
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