About Marissa
Marissa Katz Bellani is a licensed mental health counselor who helps people facing stress, anxiety, grief, depression, and relationship concerns. She meets clients with a calm, warm manner and focuses on practical steps that feel manageable. Marissa works from Hawaii and conducts sessions in English.
She uses approaches like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Client-Centered Therapy, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to tailor work to each person. Sessions often include talking through problems, practicing new ways to respond, and setting small goals to test what helps.
How Marissa works
Marissa also integrates ideas from existential therapy and the Gottman Method when appropriate. Her background includes eight years of experience in mental health, supporting people through trauma, addiction, intimacy issues, and life transitions. She pays attention to family of origin issues, attachment concerns, and caregiver stress.
Marissa also works with people navigating chronic illness, intellectual disability, autism and Asperger Syndrome-related challenges, and end-of-life or hospice situations. In a typical session she listens first, then helps clients try short, concrete experiments between meetings. That can mean practicing breathing or grounding, testing a new communication strategy, or outlining steps to cope with overwhelming days.
She aims for steady, realistic change rather than quick fixes. Marissa holds an MA and is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, LMHC. She offers several online formats including video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging.
International clients who use English are welcome to work with her.
Marissa lists 10 ways of working on the entry:
What Marissa works with
The areas below are the ones Marissa selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Addictions
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LMHC |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 8 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Hawaii |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Approaches that can be used in online sessions
Marissa commonly uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people notice unhelpful patterns and try different ways of responding. ACT focuses on identifying values and taking small actions that match those values even when feelings are hard. CBT breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and tests new approaches with short experiments.She also draws on Client-Centered Therapy to create a supportive space where the client leads the pace and focus. That approach helps people feel heard and become clearer about their own goals. Choosing the right approach is collaborative - she works with each person to decide what fits their needs, goals, and preferences and adjusts methods over time.
Online sessions offer practical flexibility. Video calls let people work face to face from different locations, phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited, and live chat or text-based messaging can suit shorter check-ins or days when typing feels more comfortable. These options make it possible to fit therapy into busy schedules, travel, or varied routines while working with licensed professionals.
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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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