- Years in practice
- 28
- Credentials
- LPC
- Licensed in
- Alabama
- Languages
- English
- Focus
- Relationship issues
- Focus
- Family conflicts
- Focus
- Trauma and abuse
About Vanessa
Vanessa Martz is a licensed professional counselor with 28 years of experience. She brings a long and varied career background, including military service and higher education, to her work. Her experience as a mother, foster parent, and caregiver shapes a compassionate, grounded approach.
Vanessa speaks plainly and directly when parents are worried and need practical help. She focuses on relationship stress, parenting challenges, grief, trauma and abuse, anxiety, depression, and addictions.
Background and approach
Vanessa also helps with issues like abandonment, attachment, blended family concerns, caregiver stress, and body image. Her work often centers on helping people navigate major life changes and reduce daily stress. Vanessa combines client-centered listening with cognitive behavioral techniques and emotion-focused work.
She also uses mindfulness and solution-focused strategies to help people find steps that feel doable. Sessions include practical tools families can try between meetings and space to talk about hard events. Her process may include examining spiritual beliefs as part of healing, so she looks for clients open to that conversation.
She aims to help people feel more at peace with their choices and to reclaim enjoyment in life. Vanessa draws on long personal and professional experience to support steady change. Based in Alabama, Vanessa works with English-speaking adults and provides sessions through video calls, phone, live chat, and text-based messaging.
She holds the LPC credential, which is noted as AL LPC.
What Vanessa works with
Everything Vanessa lists, in the therapist's own terms. Parenting is the reason this directory exists; the rest shows what else Vanessa helps people with.
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
- Trauma and abuse
- Grief
- Coping with life changes
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Parenting issues
- Anger management
- Self esteem
- Depression
- Abandonment
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Approaches Vanessa lists
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
Listing an approach is not evidence of training in it. This directory copies what each therapist names and does not check training records.
How Vanessa's approaches translate to online care
Client-centered therapy places the client's experience at the center of each session. It involves listening carefully, reflecting what matters to the person, and shaping goals around their priorities. This approach helps parents feel heard and guides practical next steps when daily life feels overwhelming.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing small behavior changes. It is useful for anxiety, depression, stress, and habits that interfere with parenting. Sessions often include short exercises to try between meetings.
Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) helps people understand and shift emotional patterns that affect relationships. It can be useful when attachment, communication, or blended family tensions are part of the struggle. Work in EFT usually includes exploring feelings and practicing new ways of responding.
Finding the right mix of methods is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, try approaches that match those goals, and adjust as progress is made. Clients help set priorities and choose what feels most useful for their situation.
Online therapy offers several practical benefits for busy parents. Video calls let people use body language and screen sharing for worksheets. Phone sessions can be a lower-bandwidth option for shorter check-ins. Live chat and text-based messaging make it possible to get support between sessions or when fitting therapy into a tight schedule. These options increase flexibility and make regular work on problems easier to keep up.
Questions people ask about Vanessa
What concerns does Vanessa commonly address?
She works with relationship stress, parenting challenges, grief, trauma and abuse, anxiety, depression, and addictions, along with related issues like abandonment and attachment.
What style of therapy should I expect?
Her style blends client-centered listening with cognitive behavioral and emotionally focused methods, plus mindfulness and solution-focused techniques for practical change.
How much experience does she bring?
She has 28 years of experience across clinical work, the military, and higher education, and draws on long personal experience with caregiving and loss.
Where is she licensed and based?
She practices in Alabama and holds an AL LPC credential, listed here as LPC for clarity.
Which languages and international options are available?
Sessions are offered in English and she is not accepting international clients at this time.
What session formats are offered?
Visits can be scheduled as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging to match different needs and schedules.
How are costs handled?
Cost varies by location and therapist availability; sessions use a subscription that can be canceled at any time.
How do I begin working together?
Use the Start Therapy button, complete a short matching questionnaire, and then schedule a session according to the therapist's availability.
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