About Maria
Maria Phillips is a licensed professional counselor in Pennsylvania who focuses on stress, anxiety, relationships, family concerns, trauma and grief. She works with people facing depression, parenting strain, intimacy questions, and compassion fatigue. Maria also supports those dealing with ADHD symptoms, life transitions, and feelings of isolation.
She uses straightforward, evidence-based methods and pays attention to each person's strengths and values. Sessions aim to help people name hard feelings, learn practical skills, and try different ways of handling conflict and closeness.
Background and approach
Maria emphasizes emotional safety and clarity over jargon and complicated theories. Her training includes a master’s degree in Art Therapy and Counseling from Drexel University and three years of practice as a Pennsylvania LPC. She blends approaches that respond to trauma, attachment concerns, and everyday stressors to meet immediate needs and long-term goals.
In sessions she may focus on patterns that come from family of origin, struggles with abandonment or codependency, and the practical steps needed to reduce panic or impulsivity. Work can include coping strategies for grief, addressing guilt and shame, or supporting someone facing end-of-life caregiving questions. Maria aims to help people build clearer boundaries, improve self-esteem, and reconnect with life purpose.
She prefers a collaborative style that balances skill-building with attention to emotional experience.
How evidence-based approaches work online
Maria often draws on approaches that focus on acceptance and on building skills. Acceptance-based work helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck, which can ease anxiety and shame. Skill-focused approaches teach concrete tools for handling panic, impulsivity, and overwhelming emotions.She also addresses attachment and family patterns by looking at relationships and behavior over time. This work helps people understand why they repeat certain patterns and gives steps for changing them in daily life, such as setting boundaries or repairing communication.
Finding the right approach is part of the therapeutic process. The therapist and client decide together which techniques match the person’s needs, goals, and preferences. That means trying something, checking in, and adjusting the plan as progress is seen.
Online therapy offers flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video can be useful for full conversations and visual connection, phone works well for shorter check-ins or when bandwidth is limited, and chat or text fits brief updates or moment-to-moment coaching. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving schedules, or other commitments while keeping continuity of care.
Questions people ask
What kinds of concerns does Maria address?
What is her general approach in sessions?
How much clinical experience does she have?
What credentials and location are listed?
Which languages are supported for sessions?
What session formats are available?
How are costs and billing handled?
How do I begin working with her?
What this counselor works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Attachment issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Domestic violence
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
- Experience
- 3 years
- Licensed
- Pennsylvania
- Languages
- English