Vanessa Martz , LPC

Vanessa Martz is an Alabama-licensed professional counselor with 28 years of experience. She combines life experience with a steady, compassionate manner. Clients describe her approach as motherly and direct, and she brings a long personal and professional history to sessions.

She draws on many parts of her background - military service, higher education, science, parenting, fostering, and pastoral work - to relate to people facing hard losses and big transitions. That mix shapes how she listens and how she helps people make sense of difficult events.

In sessions she uses clear, practical methods. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps people spot and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors. She also works with grief resolution techniques and client-centered listening to follow each person's pace. Mindfulness and solution-focused strategies are used when they fit the client's goals.

Vanessa often addresses relationship strains, trauma and abuse, grief, anxiety, depression, and parenting concerns. She also helps with issues such as abandonment, adoption and foster care, attachment concerns, blended family challenges, caregiver stress, and body image worries. Her life experience with loss and blended families informs this work.

She weaves spirituality into the work for clients who want that exploration and will bring up spiritual questions during therapy. If a person does not want to examine spiritual beliefs, she recommends seeking a different therapist. The aim of her work is to help people feel more at peace with their choices and to rediscover joy in everyday life.

How Vanessa’s Approaches Translate to Online Therapy

Vanessa commonly uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Emotionally-Focused Therapy in her work. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps people notice unhelpful thoughts and test new behaviors to reduce anxiety, depression, or problematic patterns. Emotionally-Focused Therapy focuses on emotions and attachment needs to improve communication and connection in relationships.

She also incorporates client-centered listening, which means she follows the client’s lead and adapts techniques to fit each person. Choosing the right approach is a collaborative process; she discusses goals and preferences and adjusts the plan as therapy progresses so the methods match what the client wants to work on.

Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is useful for more interactive sessions and nonverbal cues. Phone sessions can be simpler when internet bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text messaging work well for quick check-ins, brief coaching, or ongoing support between longer sessions. These options provide flexibility to fit work, caregiving, or travel schedules while keeping therapy consistent and accessible.