About Marilyn
Marilyn Bryan DeBernardo greets people with a calm, practical approach. She is a New York LMHC with 25 years of experience. She helps people who are weighed down by anxiety, depression, addiction, grief, trauma, relationship strain, or big life changes.
Her manner is straightforward and focused on real steps you can try between sessions. Marilyn uses methods that help people notice what matters to them, change unhelpful patterns, and build better ways of coping.
How Marilyn works
She blends acceptance-based work with cognitive and emotion-focused tools. Sessions tend to be conversational and goal-oriented so clients leave with things to practice. Her background includes long experience in settings that address substance use and co-occurring mental health concerns.
That work informs an approach that treats mood, behavior, and relationships together rather than in isolation. She also supports people facing caregiving strain, health-related stress, and challenges tied to life transitions. In the therapy room Marilyn helps people name patterns, test small changes, and strengthen emotional connection in their important relationships.
She pays attention to practical obstacles such as cravings, sleep disruption, or communication breakdown and addresses them directly. People who value clear guidance and steady, empathic listening often find this style useful. Marilyn can point clients toward community resources when needed and focuses on helping people build the skills they need to manage setbacks and move forward.
Marilyn lists 10 ways of working on the entry:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Motivational Interviewing
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
What Marilyn works with
The areas below are the ones Marilyn selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating disorders
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LMHC |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 25 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | New York |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Evidence-Informed Approaches for Online Care
Marilyn draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help people clarify their values and take meaningful action even when emotions are difficult. ACT can be useful for anxiety, depression, and coping with life changes. She also uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to identify unhelpful thoughts and test small behavior changes that reduce symptoms over time. CBT is practical for anxiety, depression, and addictive behaviors.The therapeutic approach is chosen together. Marilyn works collaboratively to figure out which methods match a person's goals, needs, and preferences. She checks in regularly and adjusts strategies as progress or challenges emerge.
Online therapy offers flexible ways to connect. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when more nuance is helpful. Phone sessions are useful when bandwidth is low or a quicker check-in is needed. Live chat and text messaging let people send updates, ask questions between sessions, or use brief check-ins that fit a busy day. These options make it easier to keep therapy consistent while fitting it into everyday 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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