About Melissa
Melissa McDonald Wertz helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, grief, trauma, and relationship or intimacy concerns. She also supports people dealing with sleep or eating struggles, parenting strain, career questions, compassion fatigue, and life changes. Melissa is a Colorado licensed clinical social worker with 10 years of experience.
She holds the LCSW credential and the CSW designation. Her style is warm and interactive. She focuses on building a respectful connection so people feel safe to talk and try new ways of coping.
How Melissa works
Sessions are practical and goal-focused, with room to process emotions and make gradual changes. Melissa blends several approaches rather than using just one method. She uses cognitive behavioral ideas to identify unhelpful thinking and try new behaviors.
Mindfulness practices are used to help people stay present and reduce reactivity. Motivational interviewing helps when someone wants change but feels stuck, and solution-focused techniques keep work grounded in small, doable steps. Trauma-focused tools are incorporated when past events are getting in the way of daily life.
Over a decade as a therapist and case manager gives her experience with hospice and end-of-life concerns, veteran and armed forces issues, process addictions like gambling or pornography, prejudice and discrimination, paranoia, bipolar concerns, and seasonal affective disorder. Melissa works with people in Colorado and also accepts international clients. Sessions are offered in English.
Melissa lists 5 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.
Also listed
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Eating disorders
- Family conflicts
- Grief
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intimacy-related issues
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Sleeping disorders
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
Training and background
| Registers | LCSW, CSW |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 10 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Colorado |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Therapies and how they work online
Melissa commonly uses cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness therapy to help people change unhelpful thoughts and learn ways to manage stress and mood. CBT breaks problems into thoughts, feelings, and actions so practical experiments can be tried between sessions. Mindfulness therapy teaches simple attention and breathing practices to reduce reactivity and build tolerance for difficult feelings.She also uses motivational interviewing to help people find the motivation to make changes when they feel stuck. That approach focuses on the client's own goals and values and helps set small, achievable steps. Together the therapist and client decide which approaches fit best, and the plan can change as goals evolve. Online sessions are available by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy fit into real life. Video works well for deeper conversation and visual connection, phone is useful when bandwidth is limited, chat can be a brief check-in, and messaging lets someone reflect in writing between sessions. These options make it easier to keep consistent contact and try different ways of working until a comfortable rhythm is found.
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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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