Sarah Johnston Margarida, LCSW

Sarah Johnston Margarida helps people who are feeling overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, grief, addiction, or major life changes. She is a licensed clinical social worker - LCSW - based in Maryland who focuses on practical steps clients can use right away.

She listens without judgment and works together with each person to build clear goals. Sessions emphasize skills for coping, problem solving, and deciding next steps. That makes her approach useful for day-to-day struggles and bigger turning points alike.

Sarah draws on cognitive behavioral therapy, client-centered methods, and mindfulness tools to help people notice unhelpful patterns and try different responses. She also uses motivational interviewing and solution-focused strategies to support change when people feel stuck or unsure where to begin.

Over five years of practice, she has worked with concerns such as addictions, career uncertainty, blended family issues, and eating or body-image struggles. She also helps people deal with caregiver stress, attachment difficulties, communication problems, and grief after separation or loss.

Sessions are offered in English and are available by phone, video, live chat, or text-based messaging. Sarah explains the process clearly and helps people find steps they can take between sessions to move toward their goals.

Approaches that translate to online care

Client-centered therapy focuses on listening, empathy, and helping people set their own goals. It is useful when someone needs a supportive place to make sense of their feelings and decide what matters most.

Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, looks at thoughts and behaviors that keep problems going and teaches practical skills to change them. It can help with anxiety, stress, addictions, and coping with life changes by giving short, focused exercises to try between sessions.

Mindfulness therapy introduces simple awareness practices to reduce reactivity and increase calm. Those practices can pair well with CBT and client-centered work when people want tools for managing strong emotions.

Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk about options, try techniques together, and adjust the plan based on what the client finds helpful and what fits their goals and lifestyle.

Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text messaging. Video is good for face-to-face conversation, phone works when bandwidth is limited, live chat is handy for brief check-ins, and messaging lets people share progress or questions between meetings. These options make it easier to fit therapy into a workday, a caregiving schedule, or other busy routines.