About Melisa
Melisa Maling is a licensed clinical social worker in Colorado with 33 years of experience. She helps people who are coping with trauma and abuse, grieving a loss, struggling with self-esteem, or feeling burned out from compassion fatigue. She also supports those navigating parenting challenges and workplace stress.
Her approach is conversational and respectful. Sessions are tailored to each person’s needs and pace. She listens first, then works with clients to set clear, achievable goals.
Background and approach
Over three decades of practice inform how she responds to trauma and grief. Melisa combines practical tools with careful attention to how past hurts affect current life. She uses brief skill-building alongside deeper trauma-focused work when appropriate.
She draws on client-centered methods to keep the work grounded in each person’s values. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques are used to identify unhelpful thoughts and build new coping habits. Motivational interviewing and solution-focused strategies help people make concrete changes and stay motivated.
Melisa also has experience with adoption and foster care issues, attachment concerns, communication struggles, forgiveness, guilt and shame, and questions about life purpose. She welcomes conversations about women’s issues, post-traumatic stress, and developing more self-love. Her style aims to be practical and compassionate.
She helps people name what matters, try small changes, and track progress. Taking the first step can feel hard, and she offers steady support through that process.
How these approaches work in online sessions
Client-Centered Therapy focuses on listening and understanding each person’s experience. The therapist provides a supportive space and follows the client’s lead to help them clarify what matters and what they want to change. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts, feelings, and actions link together and uses practical exercises to shift unhelpful patterns and teach new skills. Trauma-Focused Therapy centers on understanding how past traumatic events affect current life and introduces targeted tools to reduce the hold of those memories and reactions. Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, preferences, and what feels most useful. Together they decide which methods to try and adjust the plan as progress is made. Online therapy offers flexibility for people with busy schedules or limited travel time. Video calls let participants use visual cues and build connection, while phone sessions work well when lower bandwidth or no camera is preferred. Live chat and text-based messaging are helpful for brief check-ins, coping support between sessions, or when someone needs to reflect in writing. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work breaks, childcare windows, or times when a shorter check-in feels best.Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Trauma and abuse
- Grief
- Parenting issues
Also works with
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 33 years
- Licensed
- Colorado
- Languages
- English