About Mali
Mali Austriyak Mikhli is a licensed clinical social worker with forty years of practice in New York. She chose social work early in life after seeing how much a thoughtful therapist can change someone's day-to-day well-being. Mali offers warm, interactive sessions that focus on listening, practical skills, and steady support for people facing stress or anxiety.
Her approach blends Client-Centered Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Emotionally-Focused methods to address common problems like grief, trauma, depression, and relationship pain.
Background and approach
Sessions aim to help people notice patterns, manage strong feelings, and try small changes that can make life easier. Mali has worked across many cultures, religions, and life stages. That background shows up as flexibility in how she explains ideas and in the range of examples she uses.
She speaks English, Spanish, and Yiddish, which can help when language matters in a session. She often helps people dealing with parenting strain, family conflict, abandonment, adoption and foster care issues, and caregiving stress. Mali also supports those coping with career shifts, bipolar mood challenges, intimacy questions, and recovery from abuse or domestic violence.
Her style is respectful and compassionate. Sessions mix conversation, practical exercises, and reflection. Mali encourages clients to set small, achievable goals and to build skills they can use between meetings.
Approaches that translate to online work
Mali commonly uses Client-Centered Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in her online sessions. Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening closely, reflecting back what matters to the person, and helping them find their own solutions; it is useful for building self-confidence and addressing relationship or self-esteem concerns. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions connect and teaches concrete exercises to reduce anxiety and manage mood swings.Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. Mali discusses goals, preferences, and daily demands with each person and then suggests methods to try. She adapts techniques as progress is made so the plan fits the client's life and priorities.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video sessions let people work face-to-face when visual cues help. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can be easier during a commute or a short break. Live chat and text messaging allow for brief check-ins, written reflection, and more flexible timing. These options make it easier to keep therapy consistent around work, family, or travel.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Multicultural concerns
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self esteem
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 40 years
- Licensed
- New York
- Languages
- English, Spanish, Yiddish
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