About Marlene
Marlene Merchant is a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) who uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing to help people move through hard moments. She brings a direct, practical style that focuses on everyday goals and helpful skills. Her tone is encouraging and grounded in real change.
She has ten years of experience working with concerns such as stress, anxiety, depression, trauma and abuse, and addictions. Marlene also addresses eating and food-related issues, sleep problems, low self-esteem, and grief.
How Marlene works
Sessions aim to build coping skills that fit into a person's daily life. Marlene pays attention to relationship and communication problems, intimacy-related issues, and family problems as they affect individuals. She also supports people dealing with compulsive behaviors, hoarding, substance use, and obsessive-compulsive patterns.
Career concerns, life purpose, isolation, and forgiveness work are other practical areas she helps with. Her approach blends thinking-focused work with present-moment practices. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps notice and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors.
Mindfulness Therapy builds awareness and emotional regulation. Motivational Interviewing supports commitment to change by clarifying values and goals. People can expect straightforward guidance, concrete exercises, and check-ins on progress.
Marlene encourages small steps that add up over time. She welcomes conversations about what a person wants from therapy and adapts tools to fit each situation.
Marlene lists 3 ways of working on the entry:
What Marlene works with
The areas below are the ones Marlene selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
Also listed
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hoarding
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Relationship issues
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Workplace issues
Training and background
| Register | LMHC |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 10 |
| 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
How Marlene’s approaches work online
CBT focuses on spotting and changing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. Online sessions use short exercises and homework to practice new habits between meetings, which helps with anxiety, depression, and obsessive patterns.Mindfulness Therapy builds simple awareness skills to reduce reactivity and improve sleeping and stress management. When practiced in weekly sessions and between-session exercises, mindfulness can calm racing thoughts and help with emotional ups and downs.
Motivational Interviewing is a conversational method that helps people clarify what matters to them and find motivation to change. It is useful for addictions, ambivalence about change, and starting healthier routines.
Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will discuss goals, try methods, and adapt strategies based on what feels most helpful. Clients are invited to give feedback so the plan can change as progress is made.
Online therapy offers flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video works well for in-depth conversations and exercises that use visual cues. Phone calls are helpful when bandwidth is limited or a check-in fits a work break. Live chat and text messaging suit shorter check-ins, homework review, or times when writing feels easier than speaking. These options make it simpler to fit therapy into a busy life while using the therapeutic approaches described above.
Start online instead of waiting
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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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