About Maria
Maria “Patti” Lorenzo is a licensed clinical professional counselor (LCPC) based in Illinois with 12 years of experience. She focuses on helping people change the way they talk to themselves and develop a kinder, more practical relationship with their emotions. Patti offers a calm, direct style that aims to make therapy feel useful in daily life.
Many clients come because of anxiety, self-criticism, overthinking, or feeling stuck in old patterns.
Background and approach
She also supports people facing burnout, grief, depression, bipolar mood concerns, ADHD, and stress from caregiving or life transitions. Patti pays attention to how emotional patterns show up in the body and the mind. Patti blends body-focused awareness with clear, action-oriented tools.
She uses somatic ideas to notice physical signals, and cognitive and acceptance-based techniques to shift unhelpful thoughts and habits. Sessions are collaborative - she helps people spot patterns, try different responses, and track what changes. Her style is straightforward and warm.
Clients can expect reflection, honest feedback, and gentle accountability aimed at everyday improvements. Patti also addresses intimacy concerns, career stress, and complex issues like attachment or codependency in a practical way. People who prefer a Therapist who values both feeling and doing may find her approach helpful.
She works with adult clients and accepts sessions in English, including international appointments when needed. Practical tools and body awareness are woven together to help people move forward.
Ways therapy, body work, and practical tools come together online
Maria "Patti" Lorenzo uses somatic ideas to help people notice how emotions show up in the body. This can mean tracking breath, posture, or tension to better understand stress responses and to develop simple grounding practices that help in the moment.She also uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help people clarify what matters to them and take small committed actions toward those values. ACT is useful for anxiety, depression, and life transitions where shifting how you relate to thoughts matters more than trying to eliminate them. Attachment-Based Therapy is another frequent part of her work, focusing on how early relationship patterns shape current ways of connecting and reacting. That approach can help people improve communication, manage intimacy concerns, and make different choices in relationships.
Finding the right approach is part of the process. Patti works collaboratively to blend methods that match a client's goals, needs, and preferences. She will help explore what feels most helpful and adjust the plan as therapy progresses.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging, which can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life. These formats provide flexibility for people who travel, live internationally, or need different ways to connect on difficult days. The goal is practical access to consistent support and tools that transfer into everyday life.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
Also works with
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- BDSM, kink, and alternative sex culture
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Personality disorders
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sex addiction
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexual dysfunction
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Stress, Anxiety
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Visually impaired
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Existential Therapy
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Jungian Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Internal Family Systems
- Experience
- 12 years
- Licensed
- Illinois
- Languages
- English