About Melissa
Melissa Benson is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with 24 years of experience helping people manage stress and anxiety. She works with adults facing depression, grief, addictions, and major life changes. Her style is warm and respectful and she aims to meet people where they are.
She focuses on practical conversation and clear goals. sessions are shaped around each person’s needs and pace. She listens first, then suggests steps to try between meetings.
Background and approach
Melissa uses client-centered techniques to build trust and clarify what matters most to the person. She also draws on cognitive behavioral methods to spot unhelpful thinking and test new behaviors. Mindfulness practices are offered to reduce worry and improve present-moment focus.
Motivational interviewing helps when someone is unsure about change, while solution-focused strategies keep work goal-oriented and brief when that fits. These methods are mixed based on what each person needs and wants to try. She holds Florida LMHC and Utah LCMHC credentials and practices from Florida.
Sessions can include talk, brief exercises, and homework tailored to everyday life. Melissa frames therapy as a partnership aimed at clearer choices and steadier coping.
How Melissa’s Approaches Work Online
Melissa blends client-centered work with cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness to help people manage anxiety, depression, and life changes. Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and adapting to what each person says is most important, helping build trust and clarity. Cognitive behavioral therapy looks at unhelpful thoughts and tests new behaviors to reduce symptoms and improve daily functioning. Mindfulness therapy teaches simple attention and breathing practices to lower reactivity and reduce persistent worry.Choosing the right mix of approaches is part of the process. She will collaborate with each person to decide what to try first, review progress, and adjust methods based on goals and preferences. That means sessions are goal-oriented but flexible, and techniques are picked to fit the person's situation.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging, giving options for different needs. Video works well for in-depth conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions are useful when bandwidth or camera use is limited. Live chat or text-based messaging can fit short check-ins or brief coaching during a busy day. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, parenting, or travel schedules while keeping the work focused on clear steps and coping strategies.
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Guilt and shame
- Hearing impaired
- Hoarding
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 24 years
- Licensed
- Florida, Utah
- Languages
- English
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