About Melissa
Melissa Torres is a licensed clinical social worker with six years of experience helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, and addiction. She welcomes conversations about grief, relationship and intimacy concerns, self-esteem, career stress, and coping with big life changes. Melissa works in English and Spanish and practices in Virginia.
Her sessions focus on clear, practical steps. She listens first, then helps set small goals clients can try between meetings.
Background and approach
Melissa uses tools from cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness to help people notice unhelpful patterns and try new responses. She also draws on acceptance and commitment ideas to help clients clarify values and take action toward them. Melissa pays attention to how past experiences shape current relationships and feelings.
She supports people dealing with abandonment, attachment difficulties, or family of origin issues. She also addresses problems linked to substance use, domestic violence, and separation or divorce. Therapeutic work with her can include learning emotion regulation skills from dialectical behavior therapy and using motivational interviewing to explore readiness for change.
Sessions aim to build practical coping skills and stronger communication habits. Melissa highlights steady progress rather than quick fixes. Clients can expect a respectful and culturally aware space where their lived experience matters.
She blends talk, skill practice, and short exercises that fit into busy lives. The focus is on workable changes people can use right away.
Approaches that translate well to online therapy
The therapist uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help people notice and change unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns, often through short exercises and homework that fit into daily life. Mindfulness therapy is used to teach simple attention and grounding practices that reduce reactivity and increase moment-to-moment awareness. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people clarify what matters to them and take small steps toward those values while accepting difficult thoughts and feelings.Finding the right approach is part of the process. The therapist works together with each person to choose methods that match their goals, needs, and personal style. That collaborative planning can include blending techniques so sessions feel practical and relevant.
Online formats - video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging - offer flexibility for different routines. Video lets people use visual cues and face-to-face conversation. Phone sessions can be useful when bandwidth is limited or when a person prefers not to be on camera. Live chat and text-based messaging support quick check-ins, skill practice, and ongoing reflections between sessions. These options help people fit therapy into work, caregiving, and other responsibilities while focusing on steady, usable progress.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 6 years
- Licensed
- Virginia
- Languages
- English, Spanish