About Melanie
Melanie Reyes is a licensed marriage and family therapist who helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, addictions, grief, sleep problems, parenting strain, and career concerns. She supports clients dealing with relationship tension, low self-esteem, bipolar challenges, compassion fatigue, and life changes. Melanie speaks English and Tagalog and practices in California.
Melanie uses a straightforward, person-focused style in sessions. She listens first to understand each person's story. Then she offers tools and strategies that are practical and easy to use between sessions.
How Melanie works
Her aim is to make therapy feel understandable and manageable. Her approach blends client-centered work with mindfulness and psychodynamic ideas. She also uses Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, known as EMDR, for trauma processing.
Motivational interviewing helps when people want to make changes but feel stuck. Over twelve years of practice have shaped how she responds to complex situations. She works with issues like abandonment, attachment concerns, adoption and foster care matters, blended family dynamics, and caregiver stress.
Chronic illness, body image, and co-morbidity are also areas she addresses. Melanie frames therapy as a collaborative process. She helps clients set clear goals, try out new ways of coping, and track progress.
People meet by video, phone, live chat, or messaging depending on what fits their life and schedule.
Melanie lists 7 ways of working on the entry:
What Melanie works with
The areas below are the ones Melanie 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
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | LMFT |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 12 |
| Languages | English, Tagalog |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | California |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Online approaches that meet you where you are
Client-centered therapy focuses on the person in front of the therapist. It involves reflective listening, encouragement, and working from the client's own goals to build coping and confidence. This approach can help with low self-esteem, relationship stress, and decision-making.EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing - is a method used to address distress from traumatic memories. It involves guided processing of memories and can reduce the intensity of trauma-related reactions over time.
Mindfulness therapy teaches simple attention and grounding exercises to reduce anxiety and improve sleep and emotional regulation. Practicing short exercises between sessions can help people manage daily stressors more easily.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to identify which methods fit their goals and comfort level. That means trying techniques, checking what helps, and adjusting the plan together rather than imposing a single method.
Online therapy offers practical flexibility. Video calls let people meet face to face from different locations, phone sessions work well when bandwidth is limited, live chat allows brief check-ins during a busy day, and text-based messaging supports ongoing reflection and coaching. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, or other commitments while maintaining continuity of care.
Start online instead of waiting
Our partner service asks a few questions about what you are looking for and matches you with a therapist for sessions from home.
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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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