About Melissa
Melissa Hurt is a LICSW (Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker) based in Minnesota. She combines a social work background with clinical practice to help people find more stability, joy, or peace. Melissa is warm and straightforward in her approach and aims to walk alongside people as they sort out next steps.
She earned a Master of Social Work and then pursued clinical licensure. That social work training shaped how she notices systems - like culture, institutions, and family patterns - and how they affect daily life.
Background and approach
Melissa pays attention to those forces when she talks with people because they often explain a lot about current struggles. Much of her work history is in disability services, where she supported teams of social workers and stayed close to everyday challenges people face. She leans on compassion, strengths, and practical alternatives when helping someone move forward.
Melissa sees setbacks as openings for growth and helps people look for what new learning might be inside a struggle. Her life experience includes many years connected to the military community as a military spouse, and she has supported young college professionals in that context.
She is also a long-term partner and parent to three teenagers, and she often discusses the realities of long-term relationships and parenting. In sessions she blends methods like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Emotionally-Focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and mindfulness practices. Melissa focuses on finding what works for each person and helping them follow a clear, manageable path toward change.
Approaches in online care and how they help
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice painful thoughts without getting stuck in them and then commit to actions that match their values. It can be useful for anxiety, life transitions, and when someone wants clearer direction about what matters. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on the links between thoughts, feelings, and behavior and gives practical tools to test and change unhelpful patterns. It often helps with anxiety, depression, and coping skills.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Melissa will collaborate with each person to choose methods that fit their goals and preferences. She combines approaches when that makes sense and adjusts the plan as people try strategies and report what does or does not help.
Online sessions offer flexible ways to connect through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video sessions let people use face-to-face interaction when it matters, phone sessions can be a lower-bandwidth option, and messaging or live chat suits quick check-ins or short reflections between sessions. These options make it easier to schedule care around work, school, or family routines and to keep momentum between appointments.
Questions people ask
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How much clinical experience does she have?
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What session formats are available?
How are fees and getting started handled?
What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- LGBT
- Relationship issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 3 years
- Licensed
- Minnesota
- Languages
- English
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