About Marisa
Marisa Esparza is a licensed professional counselor practicing in Texas. She focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, parenting concerns, mood problems, attention difficulties, addictions, and issues related to identity and relationships. She offers straightforward support and practical tools for daily life.
Marisa uses a mix of approaches to match each person's needs. She draws on cognitive behavioral techniques to address unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. She uses acceptance-based ideas to help people live in line with their values even when feelings are hard.
Background and approach
Her background includes work across inpatient and outpatient settings. She has managed programs for children, adolescents, adults, and military outpatient groups, and has experience coordinating with medical staff and treatment teams. Those roles gave her experience with crisis assessment, group work, and collaborating on safety planning.
Earlier work included community-based outreach on an Assertive Community Treatment Team where she helped people with psychiatric rehabilitation and practical skills in daily living. During internships she focused on children and adolescents and led group sessions and family meetings. That variety shaped how she helps people navigate systems and find supports.
Marisa completed a Master of Education in Mental Health Counseling from the University of Texas at El Paso and holds a Bachelor of Education from the same university. She is a Texas LPC with ten years of clinical experience and is committed to working with people from diverse backgrounds, including LGBTQIA individuals and youth.
How therapy approaches translate to online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting overwhelmed, then choose actions that match their values. It can help with anxiety, depression, and life transitions by focusing on what matters in daily life. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions connect and uses practical exercises to change habits that cause distress. It is useful for anxiety, mood issues, and sleep or eating problems. Attachment-Based Therapy explores how early relationships shape expectations and patterns in close connections, and it can help with relationship struggles, intimacy concerns, and attachment issues.Choosing the right approach is part of the process and will happen together. The therapist will ask about needs, goals, and what methods feel most helpful, then adapt techniques over time. Clients are invited to give feedback so the plan stays aligned with what they want to achieve.
Online therapy with Marisa offers flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video lets people use visual cues and do longer sessions, phone calls work well with lower bandwidth or when being on camera isn’t desired, live chat is useful for shorter check-ins, and text messaging can support ongoing reflection between sessions. These options make it easier to fit therapy into school, work, caregiving, or busy schedules while accessing licensed professionals from different locations.
Questions people ask
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What this counselor works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Parenting issues
- Anger management
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Dissociation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- 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
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 10 years
- Licensed
- Texas
- Languages
- English