About Melissa
Melissa Madriaga is a licensed professional counselor who helps people manage stress, anxiety, depression, eating and body image concerns, and other life challenges. She offers straightforward support for emotion regulation, coping with change, and rebuilding self-esteem. Her manner is practical and grounded, aimed at helping people find clearer steps forward.
Melissa trained in clinical mental health counseling and holds a master's degree in that field. She has eight years of experience in counseling roles, including work with incarcerated and homeless populations and outreach with marginalized groups.
Background and approach
She also served seven years in the United States Army Reserves, which informs her awareness of military-related issues. In sessions she uses client-centered methods and cognitive behavioral tools to address unhelpful thinking and develop new habits. She also draws on mindfulness and narrative approaches to help people notice patterns and rewrite the stories that hold them back.
The focus is practical change rather than jargon, with skills you can practice between meetings. Melissa works with a wide range of concerns such as addiction, trauma and abuse, parenting stress, relationship and communication problems, anger, and life purpose questions. She has additional experience with abandonment, blended family issues, pregnancy and childbirth challenges, financial stress, and veteran-related matters.
She offers online sessions from Wisconsin and conducts video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Sessions use a subscription that can be canceled at any time. To begin, a short matching questionnaire is completed and appointments are scheduled based on availability.
How Melissa’s Approaches Work Online
Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and understanding a person's experience without judgment, then helping them name what matters most and set goals. It is useful for people who need a steady, empathetic space to talk through feelings and decisions.Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions interact and teaches concrete strategies to change unhelpful thinking and behavior. This approach is often used for anxiety, depression, eating concerns, and developing daily coping skills.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. Melissa will collaborate with each person to choose methods that match their needs, goals, and preferences, and she adjusts tools over time based on what helps most.
Online therapy offers practical flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation for deep work, phone sessions can fit a short break at work or require less bandwidth, and live chat or text-based messaging work well for quick check-ins or when writing feels easier. These options make it simpler to keep therapy consistent around life demands and busy schedules.
Questions people ask
What issues does she commonly address?
What is her therapeutic style like?
What background does she bring to therapy?
Where is she based and what credential does she hold?
Which languages are sessions offered in?
What session formats are available?
How is cost handled for sessions?
How do I begin working with her?
What this counselor works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Eating disorders
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Anger management
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Eating and food-related issues
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Money and financial issues
- Parenting issues
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Relationship issues
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 8 years
- Licensed
- Wisconsin
- Languages
- English