About Maria
Maria Frassinelli Sierra helps people facing grief, major life changes, stress, and career questions. She works with adults who are dealing with illness, caregiving strain, or questions about identity and purpose. Maria is a licensed clinical social worker - LCSW and LICSW - practicing in Connecticut with 25 years of experience.
Her style is straightforward and collaborative. Sessions focus on what matters most now and on building practical skills that fit into everyday life.
How Maria works
She draws on several evidence-based methods to help people manage anxiety, improve self-esteem, and cope with loss. Much of Maria's background is in medical social work, where she supported people through cancer, chronic illness, and end-of-life concerns. That experience shaped her approach to grief, hospice issues, and the medical stresses that affect families and caregivers.
She also provides coaching-style support for career decisions, professional stress, and life transitions. Topics she addresses include fertility challenges, pregnancy and childbirth, money and financial worries, and navigating midlife shifts. In sessions Maria uses tools from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Emotionally-Focused and Dialectical approaches.
Conversations are meant to be practical and humane, with small steps clients can try between meetings. She emphasizes the client as the expert and partners with people to lighten burdens and build workable strategies.
Maria lists 10 ways of working on the entry:
What Maria works with
The areas below are the ones Maria selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
Also listed
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Fertility issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Stress, Anxiety
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Training and background
| Registers | LCSW, LICSW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 25 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Connecticut |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Therapeutic approaches online and how they help
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on helping people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them, and then commit to actions that match their values; it can help with anxiety, grief, and life changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) teaches practical ways to change unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns, making it useful for stress, low self-esteem, and anxiety. Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) centers on understanding and processing emotions to improve emotional clarity and healing after loss or relationship stress.Choosing the right approach is part of the work. Maria will talk with each person about their goals, symptoms, and preferences and then suggest methods to try. This is a collaborative process and approaches can be adjusted over time to match what is most helpful.
Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to provide flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation; phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat and text messaging can fit around work or caregiving schedules and make it simpler to send quick updates between meetings. These options aim to make therapy more accessible and adaptable to daily life.
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Common questions
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A practical next step
Write down two things you would want to be different in six months. That is the most useful thing to bring to a first session, whoever it is with. If you would rather start now than keep reading, online sessions are the quickest route.
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