About Tonya
Tonya Pleasant is a Maryland-based counselor with 25 years of experience helping people manage anxiety, stress, and life transitions. She works with adults who are juggling caregiving, career strain, relationship stress, or grief. Tonya uses straightforward talk, practical skill-building, and steady support to help people move toward clearer goals.
She leans on a mix of therapy styles to meet each person where they are. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is part of her work and helps clients notice how thoughts affect mood and behavior.
Background and approach
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Client-Centered ideas guide conversations about values, meaning, and personal strengths. Sessions focus on developing real tools. Tonya listens, teaches coping skills, and practices behavior change techniques together with clients.
She highlights small wins and adjusts plans as life changes or new stressors appear. Her background includes a Master of Science in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Maryland, College Park. She also holds an MD and is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, LCPC.
Those roles inform a broad view of health and practical rehabilitation concerns. People often come for help with parenting strain, relationship communication, depression, sleep or eating difficulties, and compassion fatigue. Tonya aims to translate years of clinical experience into clear next steps so each person can try tools and see what fits.
She offers sessions by video, phone, live chat, and text messaging so people can pick what works with their routine and comfort level.
Therapeutic approaches for online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people clarify what matters to them and take small, meaningful actions toward those values. It’s useful for anxiety, stress, and decisions tied to life purpose. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy teaches practical strategies to notice and change thought patterns and behavior that keep problems going, which helps with anxiety, depression, sleep, and eating difficulties. Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and building a trusting relationship so people feel understood as they work through challenges.Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and how they like to learn skills. That collaborative process shapes which methods are used and how sessions unfold over time.
Online sessions can fit different needs and schedules. Video calls are useful for face-to-face conversation and practicing tools together. Phone sessions can be easier when a shorter check-in is needed or bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text-based messaging allow for brief updates, coaching between sessions, and more frequent contact when people want ongoing support without scheduling a full call.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Parenting issues
Also listed
- Addictions
- Anger management
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Eating disorders
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Intimacy-related issues
- Life purpose
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- Maryland
- Languages
- English
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