About Margaret
Margaret Sue Echols is a licensed professional counselor who helps adults facing stress, anxiety, depression, relationship struggles, trauma, grief, and issues with addiction or intimacy. She works with people on parenting challenges, sleep problems, career concerns, and self-esteem. Her approach is practical and straightforward, aimed at easing what feels overwhelming right now.
She brings 34 years of experience in mental health and nearly three decades in independent practice. Sessions use talk therapy along with techniques drawn from cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness.
Background and approach
She often blends methods to match the problem a person brings and the goals they want to reach. In sessions she focuses on clear steps clients can take between meetings. That can include new ways of thinking, emotion work to improve close relationships, and exercises to reduce anxiety or anger.
She also integrates longer-term perspectives when people want to explore meaning and patterns in their lives. Her background includes work with trauma, PTSD, grief at end of life, and sexual abuse, and she supports people navigating blended family issues, caregiving stress, chronic illness, and body image concerns. She is comfortable addressing identity and LGBT matters and the relational strains they can bring.
Margaret practices in Texas and offers services that fit different needs, including coaching-style sessions or deeper psychotherapy. She uses language that is direct and empathetic, and the aim is to help people find more balance, calm, and workable solutions for day-to-day life.
How her approaches translate to online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on helping people notice thoughts and feelings without getting pulled into them, then commit to actions that match their values; it can help with anxiety, depression, and life transitions. Client-Centered Therapy emphasizes a respectful, listening approach where the therapist follows the client's lead and offers empathy to build understanding and self-direction. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps people identify and change unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns, which is useful for anxiety, mood issues, sleeping problems, and coping skills.Choosing the right approach is a team effort. The therapist will discuss goals, preferences, and the specific problem to determine which methods to try first. Sessions can shift over time if different tools seem more helpful for symptoms, relationships, or practical life goals.
Online work is offered through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging so people can pick what fits their day. Video is good for deeper sessions where visual cues matter. Phone or shorter live chat sessions can fit a break at work or require less bandwidth. Text messaging supports quick check-ins, coaching-style support, and follow-up between longer sessions.
Questions people ask
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What this counselor works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Traumatic brain injury
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 34 years
- Licensed
- Texas
- Languages
- English