About Maria
Dr. Maria Clapp is a licensed mental health counselor with 25 years of experience in Florida. She greets people with a calm, practical style and focuses on helping them move past what is holding them back.
Maria speaks English and Spanish and works with adults across many life stages. She centers the work on building a trusting relationship first. Sessions usually start with a chance to talk about what feels most urgent.
Background and approach
She listens for patterns and helps people set small, realistic goals they can try between sessions. Her approach draws on client-centered care and cognitive-behavioral strategies. That means the conversation is guided by the person’s needs, and they try concrete steps to shift thoughts and behaviors.
Motivational interviewing and solution-focused techniques are used to help people find momentum and practical changes. Maria has particular experience with stress, anxiety, depression, grief, trauma and addiction concerns. She also supports people facing relationship and intimacy issues, parenting stress, career transitions, and caregiver strain.
Additional focuses include ADHD, autism and Asperger syndrome, blended family challenges, chronic illness, and codependency. Over her career she has run psychoeducational programs in parenting and anger management, and worked with individuals involved in legal processes such as court-ordered counseling. Her style is direct but compassionate, aimed at helping people feel more capable and in charge of daily life.
Clients who choose to work with her can expect a practical, collaborative pace and clear steps to try outside sessions. She encourages straightforward goals and steady progress over time.
Approaches that translate to online care
Client-centered therapy focuses on the person’s priorities and experience. Sessions begin with questions about what matters most and progress at the client’s pace, making it useful for stress, relationship concerns, and grief.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts and actions affect mood. In online sessions this becomes a practical plan of small experiments and skill practice to reduce anxiety or depression symptoms.
Motivational Interviewing helps people find their own reasons to change. It is often used when someone feels stuck by addiction, ambivalence about a decision, or trouble following through on goals.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will help figure out which method or combination fits best based on the client’s goals and preferences. That decision is collaborative and can be adjusted as progress is made.
Online therapy offers flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video allows face-to-face conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can fit into a short break. Live chat and messaging support quick check-ins, reflections, and ongoing coaching between meetings. These options make it easier to keep momentum while managing a busy life.
Frequently asked questions
What kinds of problems does she help with?
How would you describe her therapy style?
What is her professional background?
Where is she based and what credential does she hold?
Can sessions be conducted in other languages?
What session formats are available?
How does payment and cost work?
How do I begin working with her?
Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Anger management
Also works with
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Blended family issues
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Trauma and abuse
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- Florida
- Languages
- English, Spanish