Melissa Benson
Compassionate counselor with practical tools
- Credentials
- LMHC, LCMHC
- Experience
- 24 years
- Licensed in
- Florida, Utah
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Melissa
Melissa Benson is a licensed mental health counselor in Florida with 24 years of professional experience. She works with people facing stress, anxiety, grief, depression, addictions, and major life changes. Melissa approaches each person with respect, sensitivity, and compassion.
She aims to make the first step toward help easier and more manageable. Her style is practical and down to earth. Sessions focus on clear goals and real-life tools.
She listens first and then tailors conversations and a plan to each person’s needs.
Background and approach
Melissa blends supportive talk with structured techniques to reduce symptoms and improve everyday functioning. Melissa often uses cognitive behavioral techniques to identify unhelpful thinking and then practice different responses. She also draws on client-centered methods to keep sessions guided by the client’s priorities.
Mindfulness exercises and solution-focused steps are used when useful to build skills and momentum. With long experience in addictions, grief, and life transitions, Melissa is used to working through complex problems over time. She will collaborate on a plan that fits the person’s pace and goals.
Her aim is to help people find clearer choices and better coping strategies. Maryland is not listed as a location for this profile. For this listing, Melissa practices in Florida and offers sessions in English.
The focus remains on practical steps, steady support, and adapting the work to what each person needs.
Approaches that translate well to online therapy
Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and following the person’s priorities. It creates a space where the client sets goals and the therapist supports each step. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts affect feelings and actions and teaches practical skills to change unhelpful patterns. Mindfulness therapy brings attention to the present moment and includes simple exercises to reduce stress and improve focus.Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. Melissa will work with each person to decide which methods fit best based on their needs, goals, and comfort level. The plan can change over time as progress and priorities shift.
Online sessions are offered via video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to increase flexibility. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy schedules and to use tools and exercises between meetings. The format also allows continuity of care when in-person visits are not practical.
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.
Mindfulness Therapy
Attention training: noticing thoughts and physical feelings as they arrive without being carried off by them. Much of it is practice you do yourself, so guidance over video or audio works much as it would in person.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Antisocial personality
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Divorce and separation
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Guilt and shame
- Hearing impaired
- Hoarding
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 24 years
- Licensed
- Florida, Utah
- Languages
- English
Next step
Talk to Melissa
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point