About Melissa
Melissa Sonthonax is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) based in Florida. She draws on a decade of clinical experience to help people manage stress and anxiety and to improve everyday functioning. Melissa focuses on building practical skills so clients can face challenges with more confidence.
She speaks English and offers several online session formats to fit different needs. With a master’s degree in psychology earned in 2014, Melissa has spent years supporting people with anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and social anxiety.
Background and approach
She also helps with life transitions, career concerns, and relationship and intimacy-related issues. Her work includes short-term coaching for concrete goals as well as longer conversations about deeper patterns like attachment, abandonment, and codependency. In sessions she uses client-centered methods alongside cognitive behavioral and mindfulness techniques.
That means conversations focus on what matters to the person in front of her, while also teaching tools to notice thoughts, reduce worry, and change unhelpful habits. Melissa also draws on motivational interviewing and narrative approaches when helpful to unpack life stories and build momentum for change. Melissa aims to make therapy concrete and actionable.
She helps people set clear, achievable goals and practices behaviors that build confidence. Clients can expect a supportive tone, practical exercises, and individualized plans to help them move toward the life they want. Her experience includes work with addiction-related concerns such as drug and alcohol use, impulsivity, and recovery-related coping.
She also addresses emotional challenges like guilt, shame, emptiness, isolation, and anger while helping clients explore life purpose and financial stress.
Approaches that guide online sessions and flexible formats
Client-centered therapy focuses on the person’s priorities and values. Sessions start with the client’s goals and follow their pace, helping people feel heard while deciding what to change. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at the links between thoughts, feelings, and actions. It teaches practical steps to reduce anxiety, manage panic, and break unhelpful patterns.Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will collaborate with each person to choose methods that match their needs, goals, and preferences. That might mean prioritizing mindfulness skills one week, then shifting to goal-setting or behavior experiments the next.
Online therapy offers practical benefits for busy lives. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation from any reasonable location. Phone sessions work well when a call fits a break or when less bandwidth is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging support brief check-ins, written reflections, or ongoing coaching between sessions. These options help people keep therapy consistent while fitting around work, family, and daily routines.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Money and financial issues
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed
- Florida
- Languages
- English
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