Maria Russo , LCSW, CSW

Maria Russo is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Colorado with 25 years of experience. She holds a Master of Social Work and brings both professional training and personal life experience to her work. Maria focuses on helping people regain strength after trauma and navigate difficult life moments. She aims to help clients move from simply getting by to living with more meaning and connection.

Maria uses straightforward, practical conversations in sessions. She listens closely and helps people identify what keeps them stuck. She offers tools to manage anxiety, depression, grief, and addictive behaviors. She also guides people through relationship and family concerns and helps with self-esteem and coping with life changes.

Her style blends supportive listening with skills-based strategies. She draws on client-centered methods to follow each person’s pace. She also uses cognitive-behavioral techniques to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, and narrative ideas to make sense of difficult experiences.

Clients can expect work that addresses both immediate problems and deeper patterns. Maria helps locate strengths and build practical coping skills. She also pays attention to how past wounds affect present choices and relationships.

Maria practices with compassion and persistence. She invites people who want more calm, clearer decision-making, and fuller relationships to explore change. Her aim is to help clients move toward a life with more joy, authenticity, and purpose.

Approaches that guide online sessions

Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and following the person’s pace. It helps people feel heard and supported while they name goals and find their own answers. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts and behaviors keep problems going and teaches practical skills to change them, which is useful for anxiety, depression, and stress.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will talk with each person about goals, preferences, and what feels most helpful. Together they decide whether to use client-centered listening, CBT techniques, or a mix of methods based on progress and comfort.

Online sessions are offered as video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video calls are good for face-to-face conversation and nonverbal cues. Phone sessions can fit a busy schedule or require less bandwidth. Live chat and text messaging are useful for shorter check-ins, ongoing coaching, or when writing out thoughts helps more than speaking. These formats make it easier to schedule therapy around work, family, and travel while keeping therapy practical and consistent.