About Emily
Emily Materdo is an LCSW with 13 years of clinical and medical social work experience. She helps people who are struggling with stress, anxiety, trauma and abuse, bipolar disorder, depression, and compassion fatigue. She also supports concerns like caregiver stress, chronic illness and pain, codependency, and issues connected to family of origin.
Emily works in a collaborative, person-centered way. She aims to make the therapy space feel welcoming so people can talk about why they sought help.
Background and approach
She treats the person in front of her as the expert on their life while offering tools and perspectives to move forward. Her approach blends practical talk therapy with body-aware work and skills-based strategies. She draws on somatic ideas to help people notice how stress shows up physically.
She also uses methods from cognitive behavioral therapy and acceptance-based approaches to shift unhelpful thinking and increase valued action. Sessions are focused and goal-oriented while remaining open to the pace each person needs. Early sessions often clarify what matters most and set small, achievable steps.
Later work can include emotion regulation skills, attention to attachment patterns, and coping strategies for chronic health or caregiving demands. Emily practices in North Carolina and offers multiple online formats. She is able to support English-speaking clients who want flexible ways to meet, whether by video, phone, chat, or messaging.
Approaches that translate well to online therapy
Somatic-informed work helps people notice how emotions show up in the body and learn gentle ways to release tension and regulate arousal. This can support people dealing with trauma, chronic pain, or long-term stress by pairing body awareness with talking through difficult memories or sensations.Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, focuses on clarifying what matters most and taking small steps toward those values. It teaches simple skills for accepting difficult thoughts while committing to meaningful action, which can help with anxiety, depression, and mood concerns.
Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationships shape current patterns with others and with oneself. It can help people understand communication problems, abandonment fears, and recurring relationship hurts so they can try new ways of relating.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist collaborates with each person to choose methods that fit their goals, needs, and comfort level. They adjust pace and techniques over time based on what helps most.
Online sessions offer flexibility through video calls, phone meetings, live chat, or text-based messaging. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy lives, keep work or family commitments, and continue care when travel or mobility is a barrier. Licensed professionals can use these formats to teach skills, practice new responses, and check progress between sessions.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Bipolar disorder
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Blended family issues
- Cancer
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- First responder issues
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Post-traumatic stress
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 13 years
- Licensed
- North Carolina
- Languages
- English