About Mary
Mary Alfinito is a licensed clinical social worker with 40 years of practice in New York. She helps people manage stress, anxiety, depression, grief, and ADHD and supports those facing identity and life transitions. Her tone is straightforward and practical, aimed at people who want clear steps they can try right away.
She favors short, focused conversations that identify what’s worrying you now. Sessions look at thoughts and behaviors to find patterns that keep problems going.
Background and approach
Mary uses tools that help clients build coping skills and feel more in control each week. Her background includes long experience with trauma and abuse, obsessive patterns, and difficulties tied to identity and gender questions. She also works with people facing chronic illness, caregiver strain, and complex communication problems.
That experience informs how she structures sessions and sets achievable goals. Mary often combines cognitive techniques with skills training and trauma-focused strategies. That mix helps when symptoms come from long-standing patterns or from recent losses and changes.
She aims to make therapy practical and relevant to everyday life. Clients can expect a calm, matter-of-fact approach that emphasizes problem-solving and small, manageable steps. Sessions focus on what’s most pressing and on building skills to handle future setbacks.
Mary encourages straightforward feedback about what is and isn’t helping so the work can be adjusted as needed.
How evidence-based approaches translate to online care
Mary uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people notice and change thoughts and behaviors that keep anxiety and depression going; CBT breaks problems into small steps and teaches practical skills for daily life. Dialectical Behavior Therapy offers skill-building in emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and communication, which is useful when strong feelings or relationship conflicts get in the way. Trauma-Focused Therapy concentrates on processing difficult events and reducing their ongoing impact so people can manage triggers and regain more control in day-to-day situations.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. Mary listens to your concerns, goals, and preferences and then suggests methods that fit your situation. She adjusts the plan over time based on what helps most, and she invites feedback so the work stays relevant and useful.
Online therapy options include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to offer flexibility. Video is good when visual cues help the conversation, phone can be easier when bandwidth is limited, and chat or messaging can work well for quick check-ins or when writing feels easier. These formats make it simpler to fit therapy into busy schedules and to keep regular momentum between sessions.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Emptiness
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Impulsivity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 40 years
- Licensed
- New York
- Languages
- English
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