Melissa Maaske, LICSW

Melissa Maaske is a licensed independent clinical social worker with 10 years of practice in Minnesota. She focuses on helping people who feel stuck by stress, anxiety, relationship strain, trauma, and low self-esteem. Her approach is grounded in respect and compassion for each person's situation.

Melissa keeps sessions straightforward and practical. She helps clients name what feels out of balance, sort priorities, and try small changes that build forward momentum. Conversations cover coping skills, emotional reactions, and ways to communicate needs more clearly.

She uses a mix of approaches to match what each person brings. That can include looking at unhelpful thought patterns, building emotion regulation skills, or using questions that point to immediate next steps. Work may also touch on deeper life patterns that affect relationships and self-image.

Melissa has experience supporting concerns like depression, addictions, grief, intimacy-related issues, eating and body image struggles, and career stress. Additional focus areas include attachment and abandonment issues, blended family challenges, caregiver strain, and coping after loss or separation.

Her style aims to be warm and direct. She encourages practical experiments between sessions and clear, doable steps inside them. People who want a balance of problem-solving and deeper reflection often find this approach helpful.

How Melissa's approaches translate to online work

Melissa commonly draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy in her work. CBT focuses on identifying unhelpful thinking patterns and testing small behavior changes to reduce symptoms like anxiety or depression. DBT teaches practical emotion regulation and distress-tolerance skills to manage strong feelings and improve relationships.

Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn't helped in the past. Together they decide whether to emphasize thought-focused work, skills training, or a mix of strategies and adjust the plan as progress is made.

Confirm current session options before booking since formats are not specified here. Online therapy can still make it easier to fit sessions into a busy week, shorten travel time, and allow brief check-ins when full-length sessions are not possible. It can also help people try skill practice in real-world moments and bring immediate problems into the conversation for troubleshooting.