About Norja
Dr. Norja Cunningham helps people facing relationship strain, grief, stress, anxiety, and challenges with self esteem. She greets clients in a direct, practical way and aims to move them from understanding to action.
Dr. Cunningham uses clear, focused sessions that mix coaching, teaching, and therapy depending on what a person needs in the moment. She holds a Connecticut Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist credential and brings 21 years of clinical experience to her work.
How Norja works
Her approach draws on cognitive behavioral techniques and acceptance-based strategies to help people change unhelpful patterns. She also uses client-centered and dialectical tools to build skills for emotion regulation and communication. Sessions tend to be collaborative and goal-oriented.
Dr. Cunningham supports people dealing with trauma and abuse, compassion fatigue, parenting strain, intimacy-related issues, workplace stress, and concerns tied to mood or attention. She pays attention to cultural context and life circumstances when shaping a plan for therapy.
Practical skill-building is central to her style. Clients can expect concrete techniques for managing anxiety, practicing self-compassion, improving communication, and handling anger. She focuses on habits people can use between sessions to create lasting change.
Outside of clinical work she enjoys singing, creative writing, playing sports, lifting weights, and traveling. Those interests inform a down-to-earth, relatable approach in sessions.
Norja lists 11 ways of working on the entry:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Existential Therapy
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Systemic Therapy
What Norja works with
The areas below are the ones Norja selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Relationship issues
- Grief
- Self esteem
Also listed
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Body image
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Mood disorders
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Workplace issues
Training and background
| Register | LMFT |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 21 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Connecticut |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Therapeutic approaches that translate to online work
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, focuses on helping people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without getting stuck in them. It encourages small, values-based actions so clients can move toward a life they care about. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT, looks at the links between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and teaches practical tools to change unhelpful patterns, which is helpful for anxiety, mood, and stress. Client-Centered Therapy centers the person's experience and relies on empathy and trust to help people feel heard and to guide their own change.Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will help determine which methods fit a person's goals and preferences and may combine techniques across approaches. Conversations about what helps will guide choices so the plan reflects each person's needs.
Online therapy offers flexible ways to meet: video calls for a near face-to-face session, phone sessions when bandwidth is limited, live chat for shorter check-ins, and text-based messaging for ongoing connection between visits. These options let people fit sessions around work, caregiving, or travel and still practice the same therapeutic skills they would in person.
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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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