Marissa Shennan, LMFT

Marissa Shennan is a licensed marriage and family therapist who helps people manage stress, anxiety, depression, relationship struggles, trauma, and parenting concerns. She approaches therapy with a collaborative, straightforward style and aims to make sessions practical and focused on real change.

She uses several methods to match what each person needs. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is among the techniques she uses to identify patterns in thoughts and behaviors. Attachment-based and emotionally-focused ideas guide work on closeness and trust in relationships.

Marissa draws on approaches such as EMDR when trauma processing is needed and client-centered methods to keep sessions rooted in the person's goals. She keeps conversations clear and goal-oriented so progress can be tracked over time. Sessions are aimed at doable steps rather than vague promises.

With three years of experience as an LMFT licensed in California and Idaho, she has worked with both everyday worries and more intense concerns. Her work includes helping people with grief, addiction-related issues, anger, self-esteem, and feelings of isolation or abandonment.

Therapy sessions can be scheduled in a variety of online formats. Marissa encourages clients to describe their priorities in early meetings so treatment plans align with their life, values, and pace of change.

Therapeutic approaches and online care

Marissa works with a mix of methods that translate well to online sessions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing them with small behavioral experiments, which helps with anxiety, low mood, and stressful patterns. Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early relationship patterns influence current closeness and trust, and it helps people change how they relate to others. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is used as a trauma-focused tool to process distressing memories and reduce their intensity.

Choosing the right approach happens together. The therapist will listen to the client's goals and preferences, try strategies that fit those goals, and adjust the plan over time. This collaborative process helps identify which tools feel most useful for the person's situation.

Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video is useful for richer conversation and visual cues, phone calls can work when bandwidth is limited, chat can support brief check-ins, and messaging is handy for ongoing reflections between sessions. These options make therapy easier to fit into work, school, or family routines while keeping the focus on practical steps and progress.