Maria Alderman
Practical support for stress and life changes
- Credentials
- LMSW
- Experience
- 6 years
- Licensed in
- Michigan
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Maria
Maria Alderman is a licensed social worker who helps people manage stress, anxiety, grief, trauma, and problems with addiction. She also supports concerns around relationships, intimacy, parenting, sleep and eating, attention challenges, mood disorders, and work stress. Maria works from Michigan and speaks English.
Her style is respectful and straightforward. She listens first to understand each person’s situation. Then she tailors talks and tools to what feels useful for that person.
Background and approach
She aims to make small steps feel doable rather than overwhelming. Maria uses several practical therapy methods. She draws on cognitive behavioral therapy to spot unhelpful thinking patterns.
She uses acceptance and commitment therapy to help clarify values and cope with painful feelings. Motivational interviewing helps when someone is wrestling with change. She also offers client-centered and psychodynamic elements, meaning sessions can focus on what matters most now while noticing past patterns that still show up.
Conversations are collaborative and paced to the individual. With six years as a licensed master social worker, Maria frames therapy as a partnership. She focuses on concrete strategies and clear next steps.
The work aims to help people feel more capable managing everyday stress and life transitions.
Therapeutic approaches and online care that fit your life
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people notice and make space for difficult feelings while clarifying what matters most to them. It is often used for anxiety, grief, and persistent stress when avoidance gets in the way. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on identifying and changing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors with clear, practical techniques that can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. Client-Centered Therapy centers the person in the room, using empathic listening and collaboration to build trust and guide change at a comfortable pace.Finding the right approach is part of the work. Maria will listen to a person’s goals and try different methods to see what fits. The therapist and client decide together what to emphasize and how quickly to move forward, adjusting as progress or new needs emerge.
Online therapy offers several practical benefits. Video calls let sessions feel face to face while saving travel time. Phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging give options for shorter check-ins, reminders, or ongoing support between meetings. These formats aim to make consistent care easier to fit into a busy life and to keep momentum between sessions.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Less about arguing with difficult thoughts, more about loosening their grip and acting on what matters to you anyway. Values and committed action carry the work, which suits conversation at a distance.
Client-Centered Therapy
The direction comes from you rather than from a set programme. The therapist offers a warm, non-judgemental space to think out loud and work at your own pace. Online, this rests on the relationship rather than on being in the same room.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT looks at the link between what you think, how you feel, and what you do. You work on noticing unhelpful patterns and practising steadier responses. It suits online sessions well, because much of the work happens between appointments and can be talked through from anywhere.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- 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
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 6 years
- Licensed
- Michigan
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Maria
- Takes a few minutes to look through
- Nothing to set up just to read
- Stop at any point