About Marissa
Marissa O'Connor helps people who are dealing with stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship strain, parenting challenges, and sleep or eating concerns. She works with clients struggling with grief, compassion fatigue, anger, ADHD, and life changes. Marissa introduces practical steps so people can feel steadier day to day.
She uses a person-centered style that puts the client's priorities first. Sessions focus on concrete skills and small changes that carry over into everyday life.
Background and approach
Marissa draws on approaches like cognitive behavioral techniques, dialectical behavior strategies, mindfulness work, and motivational interviewing to match tools to each situation. Marissa has seven years of clinical experience and holds a Licensed Clinical Social Worker credential - LCSW. She practices in New York and supports people who prefer English-language sessions.
Her background includes addressing trauma, post-traumatic stress, panic, obsessive-compulsive concerns, and issues that arise for first responders and caregivers. In sessions she aims to build practical coping plans for problems such as body image, communication problems, guilt and shame, and impulse control. She can help people develop routines for sleep, manage seasonal mood shifts, and work on forgiveness and life purpose questions.
Marissa offers flexible formats including video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Getting started involves a short matching questionnaire and scheduling a first session to identify goals and next steps.
How therapeutic approaches translate to online care
Client-centered therapy emphasizes listening and following the client’s lead. It focuses on building a trusting relationship and helping people decide what matters most to them. This approach helps with a wide range of concerns, from low mood to relationship stress.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions interact. It uses concrete exercises and short practice tasks to reduce anxiety, manage panic, and address depressive patterns. Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, offers skills for regulating strong emotions and improving relationships, with attention to distress tolerance and emotion regulation.
Finding the right approach is part of the therapeutic process. Marissa will work together with each person to identify which methods fit their goals, needs, and daily routines. That collaboration guides which tools are used in sessions and which homework or practices to try between meetings.
Online therapy here is offered through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video sessions allow face-to-face conversation and shared materials, phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited, live chat offers brief check-ins, and text-based messaging supports ongoing reflection and shorter exchanges. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, family life, or a busy schedule.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Body image
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Domestic violence
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Life purpose
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 7 years
- Licensed
- New York
- Languages
- English