Merry Walensa, LPCC

Merry Walensa is a California-licensed LPCC with 17 years of clinical experience who helps people facing grief, relationship strain, stress, and life transitions. She also supports work on self-esteem, career concerns, coping with change, and issues with addiction and depression. Her focus includes aging and geriatric issues alongside other long-term challenges such as chronic illness and isolation.

She offers straightforward, integrative care that blends practical skills with reflective conversation. Sessions often include Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy tools to build coping skills and clear steps forward. Emotion-focused and existential ideas are also part of her approach when exploring meaning and values.

Merry aims to create an open, nonjudgmental space where people can name feelings and try new ways of handling problems. She encourages courage and steady progress rather than quick fixes. She asks new clients to book a video appointment first before using phone or chat options.

Her background includes extensive work helping people manage grief, end-of-life concerns, family conflict, and communication problems. She brings experience with issues such as abandonment, codependency, and forgiveness, and she supports clients facing chronic pain, intellectual disability, or hospice-related challenges.

Appointments use a subscription model that can be canceled at any time. Sessions are offered in English and are provided by a California LPCC. To begin, people complete a short matching questionnaire and schedule based on the therapist's availability.

How therapeutic approaches guide online sessions

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people clarify what matters to them and take small, workable steps toward those values. It can be useful for anxiety, depression, life transitions, and finding motivation. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thought patterns and testing new behaviors to reduce distress and improve day-to-day functioning. It is commonly used for anxiety, sleep problems, and mood concerns. Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) centers on understanding emotions and improving how people express and respond to feelings in close relationships, which can help with intimacy-related and communication issues.

Figuring out the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will partner with each person to decide which methods fit their goals and preferences. This is a collaborative process that may combine elements from different approaches as progress continues.

Confirm the current session options before booking, since formats are set by the therapist. Merry asks new clients to schedule a video appointment first before moving to phone or chat for later sessions. Online sessions can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy day, allow shorter check-ins when needed, and reduce travel time so people can meet during lunch breaks or between appointments.