About Heather
Heather McQuay is a licensed clinician in Maryland with more than 20 years in human services and over a decade working as a therapist. She holds an MD and is a Licensed Certified Social Worker-Clinical, LCSW-C. Heather focuses on helping people who are overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, grief, mood concerns, or trauma.
She centers sessions on the person in front of her. Heather listens first, then helps people set goals that matter to them.
Background and approach
Sessions are collaborative and practical, aimed at small steps people can use between meetings. Her background includes work with mood disorders, trauma from childhood and adulthood, and a wide range of life challenges. She also supports people facing caregiving strain, chronic illness, adoption and foster care issues, and career or parenting transitions.
Heather brings two decades of experience to these topics. Heather mixes approaches rather than relying on one method. She uses cognitive behavioral ideas to spot and change unhelpful thinking.
She draws on client-centered and acceptance-based work to help people build values-based goals. In sessions she may use skills from dialectical behavior therapy for emotion regulation and motivational interviewing to strengthen commitment to change. The work is adapted to each person's needs and paced to match what they can handle.
Her practice offers video, phone, live chat, and text messaging formats. People who want to begin can complete a short matching questionnaire and schedule a time that fits their calendar.
How Heather’s approaches translate to online care
Heather often uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help people notice painful thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them, then choose actions that fit their values. This can be useful for anxiety, stress, and life transitions. She also uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to identify unhelpful thought patterns and test new, more helpful behaviors in everyday life.Finding the right approach is a joint process. Heather works with each person to decide which methods fit their goals and comfort level. She adjusts techniques over time based on what proves most helpful.
Online therapy offers flexibility for different schedules and needs. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation, phone sessions work well when video isn't possible, and live chat or text can be used for brief check-ins or when typing is easier. These options make it simpler to attend sessions from work breaks, while traveling, or when arranging care for others.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Anger management
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 20 years
- Licensed
- Maryland
- Languages
- English
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