About Marisa
Marisa Esparza is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Texas who helps people manage anxiety, stress, parenting strain, and mood concerns. She works with adolescents, young adults, and adults, and brings a practical, down-to-earth style to sessions. Her approach is straightforward and focused on everyday changes that make life easier.
She earned a Master of Education in Mental Health Counseling from the University of Texas at El Paso and a Bachelor of Education from the same school.
Background and approach
Over a decade in behavioral health gave her experience across inpatient units, outpatient programs, and community teams. Those roles involved crisis response, group leadership, and coordination with medical staff. In inpatient settings she managed programs for children, adolescents, and adults, and helped stabilize high-risk clients.
She provided psychological and risk assessments, led daily groups, and joined treatment teams during emergencies. That hands-on work included verbal de-escalation and planning for safe community transitions. On an Assertive Community Treatment team she delivered psychiatric rehabilitative skills, crisis assessment, and community-based supports.
She worked to link clients with social, educational, and medical resources so they could remain in the community and avoid unnecessary hospitalization. Marisa emphasizes clear communication and practical skills. She advocates for LGBTQIA youth and helps parents and caregivers navigate differences in worldview.
Her clinical tools include acceptance-focused strategies, cognitive and emotion-based techniques, and person-centered work to help people cope and build better routines.
Therapeutic approaches that translate well to online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them, then move toward things that matter. It’s useful for anxiety, stress, and coping with life changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing them with real-life experiments, which can reduce anxious or depressive patterns. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) teaches concrete skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and clearer communication when emotions run high.Finding the right mix of these approaches is part of the work together. The therapist will collaborate with clients to decide which strategies fit their goals, preferences, and day-to-day needs. That process can include trying skills in session, then applying them between meetings and reviewing what helped most.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to match different needs. Video is helpful for in-depth conversations and practice, phone sessions are useful when bandwidth is limited, live chat supports quick check-ins, and messaging can be used for ongoing support or short reflections. These options make scheduling easier and let people fit therapy into busy lives.
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Parenting issues
- Anger management
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- 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
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed
- Texas
- Languages
- English
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