About Melissa
Melissa Strauss is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with 13 years of clinical experience. She focuses on stress, anxiety, depression, relationship concerns, grief, and self-esteem. She also supports people facing trauma, intimacy questions, eating and sleeping problems, parenting strain, career transitions, and ADHD-related challenges.
Her style is warm and direct. Sessions are collaborative and aim to build on a person's strengths. She listens for patterns in relationships and body responses and helps clients connect thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Background and approach
Melissa draws from somatic awareness to notice how the body holds stress and emotion. She pairs that with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to clarify values and small steps forward. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is used to spot unhelpful thinking and try practical experiments between sessions.
Work in sessions may include slowing down to notice physical sensations, naming emotions, trying new ways to talk about problems, and practicing small behavioral changes. The focus is on what a person wants to get back to in daily life and clear next steps to move toward it. She holds LPC licensure in Pennsylvania and brings a practical approach to problem solving.
Melissa aims to make therapy feel manageable for busy lives and supports people who want a mix of body-focused work and evidence-based tools. Clients can expect straightforward language, steady pacing, and a focus on skills they can use outside the therapy hour.
How Somatic and ACT Approaches Work Online
Somatic work pays attention to how the body holds tension and feeling. In practice this means the therapist guides gentle attention to breath, posture, and sensations to help people notice where stress shows up and try small ways to shift it. This can help with anxiety, trauma responses, and physical signs of stress.Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on clarifying what matters most and taking small committed steps toward those values. It teaches simple exercises for noticing thoughts without getting stuck in them and choosing actions that match personal goals. This approach is useful for coping with anxiety, depression, and life transitions.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to decide which methods to try first, adjusting based on what feels useful. Sessions can combine somatic noticing, value-driven goals, and cognitive strategies as needed.
Online sessions are offered via video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy more flexible. These formats let people fit care into busy days, practice skills between meetings, and stay connected from different locations. The variety of options helps match communication style and practical needs while working toward clearer daily routines and coping strategies.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Grief
Also works with
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Parenting issues
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 13 years
- Licensed
- Pennsylvania, New Jersey
- Languages
- English