About Michelle
Michelle Lesagonicz is a licensed clinical social worker in Alaska with 11 years of experience. She focuses on practical, person-centered care that starts with what each person needs most. Michelle speaks plainly and listens closely to help people find steady ways forward.
She blends Client-Centered Therapy with mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. That combination supports people who are dealing with anxiety, stress, depression, trauma, or life changes. Sessions often include simple tools to manage symptoms and small experiments to test what works.
Background and approach
Michelle also uses solution-focused techniques and motivational interviewing to help people set clear goals. These approaches are useful for problems like sleep disruption, panic attacks, addictive behaviors, and workplace stress. She helps people break big issues into manageable steps and track progress.
Support for physical health concerns is part of her work as well. She helps people cope with chronic pain, illness, or disability by addressing practical routines, mood, and coping strategies. Discussion may include communication patterns, boundaries, and problem solving around family or relationship stresses.
Sessions are conversational and goal-oriented. Michelle aims to build trust through listening, respect, and clear communication. She encourages self-awareness, stronger decision making, and steady behavior changes that fit each person's life.
How Michelle's Approaches Work Online
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and understanding what matters to the person first. In practice this looks like the therapist following the client's lead, reflecting feelings, and helping people choose goals that fit their life. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at patterns of thought and behavior and teaches specific skills to reduce anxiety and depression symptoms. It helps with panic attacks, phobias, sleep problems, and low mood by changing unhelpful thinking and testing new behaviors.Finding the right mix of approaches is a joint process. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, try techniques that match those goals, and adjust the plan based on what is most helpful. This collaborative process helps make sessions feel relevant and practical rather than theoretical.
Online sessions can be held as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging, offering flexible ways to connect. Video calls are useful for full conversations and visual cues. Phone sessions can work well when bandwidth is low or a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat and text messaging allow brief updates, ongoing support between sessions, and a written record of strategies discussed. These options help people fit therapy into work, parenting, and daily life while keeping the focus on progress and usable skills.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Addictions
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Family problems
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 11 years
- Licensed
- Alaska
- Languages
- English
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