About MAIDA
MAIDA FERRAES is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who helps people manage stress, anxiety, depression, grief, and addiction. She supports people facing relationship and parenting strains, sleep problems, ADHD challenges, and major life changes. She works in both English and Spanish and brings seven years of clinical experience in California.
Her style is warm and practical. She values calm, steady conversation and clear steps you can try between sessions.
Background and approach
Sessions often focus on small, achievable goals and habits that make daily life feel easier. MAIDA uses tools from cognitive behavioral therapy to identify unhelpful thoughts and change patterns. She also draws on dialectical behavior therapy skills to teach emotion regulation and mindfulness techniques to slow down stress reactions.
Motivational interviewing helps when people feel stuck and want to make changes but aren’t sure how to start. She has worked in outpatient and residential settings and led both individual and group work with people coping with mood disorders, trauma, and addiction. That variety shaped a practical approach that blends hands-on skills with reflective conversation.
Sessions are guided by the person’s goals and pace. MAIDA focuses on building skills, improving communication, and strengthening coping strategies. She aims to make therapy understandable and useful for everyday life.
Practical approaches for online therapy
MAIDA uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people spot and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors that feed anxiety or low mood. CBT often involves short experiments, tracking thoughts and actions, and trying new routines to see what helps.She also uses dialectical behavior therapy skills to teach emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness. These DBT techniques are useful when emotions feel intense and communication needs to improve.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to pick methods that match their goals, pace, and preferences. That might mean starting with problem-solving and CBT tools, then layering in mindfulness or DBT skills as needed.
Online sessions can be scheduled as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video calls let people work through material more directly and practice skills in real time. Phone sessions can be a good shorter check-in when bandwidth or screen time is limited. Live chat and messaging are useful for brief updates, coaching between appointments, or when people prefer writing to talking.
These formats aim to increase flexibility so therapy fits into work, family, and daily life while keeping the focus on practical skill-building and steady progress.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Mood disorders
- Parenting issues
- Postpartum depression
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Sleeping disorders
- Trauma and abuse
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 7 years
- Licensed
- California
- Languages
- English, Spanish
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