About Melissa
Melissa Elliott introduces herself as Leesa and has worked as a licensed mental health counselor in Florida for over 30 years. She recognizes the courage it takes to reach out for help and aims to make therapy practical and straightforward. Her initial focus is on helping people find more peace, balance, and happiness in daily life.
She favors hands-on tools that people can use right away. Sessions often include ways to notice and change unhelpful thought patterns and to try new behaviors between meetings.
Background and approach
Melissa tailors the pace and techniques to each person so sessions fit real life, not a one-size-fits-all plan. Her background includes long experience with stress, anxiety, depression, and grief. She also brings experience with parenting concerns, relationships, caregiving for aging parents, infertility, adoption, and work-related challenges.
Those life experiences inform practical suggestions and realistic goal setting. Melissa also supports people dealing with trauma and abuse, anger, bipolar disorder, ADHD, compassion fatigue, and career questions. She mixes problem-focused coaching with therapy-style reflection when that helps reach goals faster.
In session she emphasizes clear steps, homework people can actually use, and steady progress over time. She wants clients to leave each meeting with something helpful to try between sessions. Clients meet with Melissa online by phone, video, chat, or text messaging.
She works in English and practices as an LMHC in Florida.
Therapeutic approaches and online options that fit your life
Melissa often uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which helps people notice how thoughts affect feelings and actions and then try new thinking and behavior patterns to reduce distress. This approach is useful for anxiety, depression, stress, and many everyday problems.She also blends practical coaching techniques with therapeutic reflection to set clear goals and steps. That combination helps people who want focused change for parenting, career challenges, caregiving strain, or managing mood shifts.
Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process. Melissa discusses options with each person, tries methods that match goals and personality, and adjusts plans when something does not fit. The work is shared so clients help shape what feels most helpful.
Online therapy lets people connect by video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video works well for conversational sessions and exercises, phone is a good option when bandwidth or camera use is limited, live chat and text messaging are useful for quick check-ins, brief coaching, or when typing feels easier than speaking. These options make it simpler to fit therapy into a busy schedule and to keep momentum between appointments.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Parenting issues
- Self esteem
Also works with
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Fertility issues
- Grief
- Relationship issues
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- Florida
- Languages
- English