About Melissa
Melissa Guarnaccia uses practical, action-focused approaches to help people manage stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship concerns. She combines strategies from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people notice what matters and take steps toward it. Melissa holds both LISW-CP and LCSW credentials and brings eleven years of clinical experience to her work.
Her sessions are straightforward and goal-oriented. She helps people build skills to reduce worry, manage mood swings, and handle family conflict.
How Melissa works
She also supports people facing grief, trauma and abuse, eating concerns, anger, intimacy-related issues, career questions, and symptoms related to bipolar disorder. Melissa favors brief, practical exercises that fit into daily life. She pairs skill-building with attention to values so people can make choices that match what matters most to them.
She describes her style as relaxed and nonjudgmental while keeping sessions focused on progress. Her background includes work in hospital and school settings as well as independent practice. Melissa earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
She holds SC LISW-CP and NC LCSW credentials. Outside of work she lives in North Carolina with her family and a pug named Mabel. She enjoys outdoor time and travel, and brings that same curiosity about people to her clinical work.
Melissa lists 2 ways of working on the entry:
What Melissa works with
The areas below are the ones Melissa selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- Family conflicts
- Self esteem
Also listed
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Depression
- Eating disorders
- Grief
- Intimacy-related issues
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
Training and background
| Registers | LISW-CP, LCSW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 11 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | North Carolina |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
How ACT and CBT work in online therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them. It focuses on clarifying personal values and taking small committed actions that move people toward those values. ACT is often useful for anxiety, avoidance, and problems tied to meaning or motivation.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on changing unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns. It uses practical exercises and experiments to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression and to tackle problems like anger or unhealthy eating habits. CBT gives concrete tools people can use between sessions.
Finding the right method is part of the work together. The therapist will talk with the person about goals, preferences, and day-to-day needs, and then suggest approaches that fit. That collaboration helps shape whether ACT, CBT, or a mix of both will be used.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is good for in-depth sessions when visual cues matter. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or when someone needs a quick check-in. Chat and messaging are useful for brief check-ins, homework prompts, and staying connected between longer sessions. These options make therapy more flexible so people can fit sessions into busy lives.
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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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