About Mary
Mary Messerschmidt is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) in Virginia with 25 years of experience. She helps people facing anxiety, depression, addictions, relationship and intimacy concerns, and stress. She also supports those coping with trauma, grief, ADHD, bipolar mood challenges, and career or parenting strain.
Her style is straightforward and warm. Sessions focus on building an honest therapeutic relationship and practical steps people can use between meetings. She values respect, compassion, and treating each person as an individual rather than a label.
How Mary works
Mary blends a mix of approaches to meet everyday needs. She uses cognitive behavioral ideas to spot unhelpful thinking, acceptance and commitment tools to clarify values and action, and attachment-based work to address relationship patterns. Dialectical skills and client-centered listening fill out a flexible toolkit.
People can expect calm coaching when goals are practical, and deeper exploration when issues trace back to trauma or loss. Conversations include skill practice, goal-setting, and attention to feelings and relationships. Mary also offers life coaching for clients who want structure around change.
Sessions are offered online by video, phone, live chat, or text messaging. Mary works in English and holds a Virginia LCSW credential. For those who want to begin, the process starts with a matching questionnaire and scheduling through the site.
Mary lists 12 ways of working on the entry:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Imago Relationship Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
What Mary works with
The areas below are the ones Mary selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
- Intimacy-related issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Postpartum depression
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Trichotillomania
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LCSW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 25 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Virginia |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
How Mary’s approaches work online
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, focuses on helping people notice what matters to them and take action toward those values even when difficult thoughts or feelings show up. It can help with anxiety, depression, and stress when someone wants clearer life direction. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationship patterns shape current connections and trust. It helps people understand repeating patterns in intimate relationships and build healthier ways of relating. Client-Centered Therapy centers the person’s experience by listening attentively and following the client’s pace; this approach supports people who need a steady, nonjudgmental space to sort through feelings and decisions.Finding the best approach is part of the work together. Mary will discuss options and tailor methods to a person's goals, needs, and preferences. Decisions about which tools to use are made collaboratively, and plans can change as progress is tracked.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to fit different schedules and needs. Video is useful for full sessions and visual cues, phone calls work well when bandwidth is limited or for brief check-ins, and chat or text can support quick coaching, check-ins, and between-session contact. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, or travel routines while keeping a consistent therapeutic process.
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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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