About Melissa
Melissa Maaske is a licensed independent clinical social worker with ten years of experience. She works in Minnesota and focuses on stress, anxiety, relationship concerns, trauma and self esteem. Melissa takes a direct but caring approach to help people find clearer footing during hard times.
She begins by listening to what matters most to each person. Sessions often start with practical goals and small steps that feel doable. Melissa uses a mix of evidence-informed ways of working to help people change unhelpful habits and cope better day to day.
Background and approach
Her style balances skill-building and reflection. That means learning concrete tools for stress or anxiety alongside looking at patterns that keep showing up. She helps people name emotions, notice automatic thoughts, and try out different responses in real life.
Melissa often focuses on communication and boundaries when relationships are causing distress. She also supports people facing grief, addiction, body image concerns, career stress, and the fallout of trauma or attachment disruption. She can talk through coping strategies for caregivers and people feeling burned out.
Therapy sessions may include short-term goals or longer exploration depending on what a person wants. Melissa works with people who want practical tools and honest conversation. She aims to make therapy feel like a steady place to try new things and see change.
Approaches that translate well to online care
Melissa commonly uses cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy in sessions. Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on identifying and changing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, which helps with anxiety, depression, and stress by giving clear tools to practice between sessions. Dialectical behavior therapy teaches emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and improved communication skills; it can be useful for intense emotions, relationship conflicts, and repeated patterns that cause pain.Finding the right approach is part of the work together. Melissa will talk with each person about their goals and preferences and choose or adapt methods that fit. She collaborates on a plan that mixes skill practice and deeper reflection, and revises it as needs change.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and skill demonstrations. Phone sessions can work when a quieter or low-bandwidth option is needed. Live chat and text are useful for brief check-ins, coaching between sessions, or when typing feels easier. These options aim to make therapy flexible and easier to fit into a busy life.
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trichotillomania
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed
- Minnesota
- Languages
- English
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