Marian Howard, LMHC

Marian Howard is a licensed mental health counselor with 20 years of clinical experience. She uses practical, evidence-informed approaches to help people cope with anxiety, depression, grief, and life changes. Marian speaks English and offers sessions to people in Massachusetts and internationally.

Her work often focuses on stress, panic, addictions, and the emotional fallout of trauma and abuse. She helps people who struggle with self-esteem, intimacy-related concerns, and compassion fatigue. She also supports those facing bipolar symptoms and ADHD-related challenges.

Marian emphasizes clear, manageable steps in sessions. She blends cognitive behavioral tools with client-centered conversation and skills from dialectical behavior therapy. That mix helps people change unhelpful thoughts, build emotion regulation skills, and practice new ways of relating to themselves and others.

She pays attention to patterns that underlie recurring problems such as guilt, shame, control issues, or avoidance. Marian offers straightforward skill teaching and collaborative problem solving so clients can try strategies between sessions. She also helps parents address parenting stress and caregiver strain by focusing on practical coping and communication skills.

Across twenty years in the field, Marian has supported people through divorce and separation, loneliness, panic disorder, and post-traumatic stress. Her sessions aim to reduce overwhelm and increase everyday functioning with steps that fit a person’s life.

Using CBT and Skills-Based Work Online

Marian integrates cognitive behavioral techniques and dialectical behavior therapy skills into online sessions to help people change unhelpful thinking and manage strong emotions. CBT focuses on identifying thought patterns and testing new behaviors to reduce anxiety and depression symptoms. DBT adds concrete skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and improving communication, which can be helpful for panic, intense mood shifts, and relationship struggles.

Deciding which approach to use is part of the work. Marian will collaborate with each person to choose methods that match their concerns, goals, and daily life. Together they review what is helping, try tools in session, and adjust the plan as progress is made.

Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to increase flexibility. Video is useful for longer therapy tasks and skill practice, phone calls can fit a break at work or require less bandwidth, and chat or messaging can support brief check-ins or ongoing skill reminders. These options make it easier to schedule consistent sessions and practice new skills between meetings.