Mariana Mackinnon, LCSW

Mariana Mackinnon is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) who helps people facing stress, anxiety, relationship struggles, and life transitions. She speaks English and Spanish and draws on personal experience moving between cultures to connect with clients who feel pulled in different directions. Mariana aims to make therapy feel practical and understandable for people worried about change or loss.

She uses a mix of approaches tailored to each person’s needs. Sessions often focus on noticing what matters most, learning skills to manage emotions, and trying small experiments that change daily life. Techniques include work from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing as part of trauma-focused care.

Mariana has eight years of clinical practice and holds a Florida LCSW. Her background includes living and working abroad, which shaped how she sees cultural identity, language, and belonging in therapy. She brings that cultural curiosity into conversations about identity, grief, caregiver stress, aging concerns, and intimacy-related difficulties.

In sessions she focuses on clear goals, steady skill-building, and practical steps clients can use between meetings. People who want a therapist who listens without judgment and helps them make workable changes may find her approach useful.

To begin, readers should use the site's Start Therapy flow to match and schedule according to the therapist’s availability.

How Mariana’s approaches translate to online work

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on identifying personal values and taking small actions that match those values while learning to tolerate difficult feelings. It can help with life transitions, stress, and motivation. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors connect and teaches concrete skills to change unhelpful patterns; it is often used for anxiety, depression, and anger. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a trauma-focused method that helps process distressing memories and reduce their intensity when trauma is a central concern.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. Mariana talks with each person about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t worked in the past. Together they decide which methods to try and adjust the plan over time so it fits the client’s needs.

Confirm the available session formats before booking since specific online or in-person options are set by the therapist. In general, online therapy can make it easier to fit appointments into a busy week, allow for a shorter check-in when needed, and remove travel time. Some formats also make it simpler to choose sessions that rely less on video or to schedule times that work around caregiving or work demands. Licensed professionals can adapt ACT, CBT, and EMDR techniques for remote sessions while focusing on practical skills and paced processing.