Macarena Santelices

Macarena Santelices is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, LCPC, and a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, LPCC, practicing with 14 years of experience. She is licensed in California and Maryland. She helps people facing stress, anxiety, relationship and family concerns, low self‑esteem, depression, parenting strain, and big life changes like midlife transitions or questions about life purpose.

Her style is direct and practical. She treats the person in front of her as the expert on their life and looks for strengths to build on. Sessions focus on clear goals and small steps people can try between meetings. Macarena uses straightforward techniques so clients can see what works for them.

Macarena draws from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to spot unhelpful thinking and try different behaviors. She uses Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills for managing intense emotions and Mindfulness Therapy for grounding and noticing thoughts without judgment. These methods are used to address mood, anxiety, and relationship patterns.

People often come to her when they feel stuck after a life change, uncertain about priorities, or overwhelmed by day-to-day stress. She helps with practical problem solving, communication strategies, and emotion regulation skills. She also works on issues like abandonment, attachment, body image, caregiver strain, chronic illness, and money worries.

Her approach aims to be collaborative and goal‑oriented. New clients are invited to set concrete goals and test small changes. The focus is on building skills that can be used outside of sessions to cope with current challenges and make decisions about what comes next.

Approaches used in online sessions and practical fit

Macarena uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people notice unhelpful thoughts and test different ways of thinking and behaving. CBT is often used for anxiety, depression, and problems with motivation by turning ideas into specific experiments and small behavior changes.

She also applies Dialectical Behavior Therapy skills when emotions feel intense. DBT skills focus on managing strong feelings, tolerating distress, and improving communication in pressured moments. Mindfulness Therapy is used alongside these skills to help people become more aware of thoughts and bodily sensations without reacting immediately.

Finding the right approach is part of the work in early sessions. Macarena will discuss goals, preferences, and what has or hasn't worked before. She treats selecting methods as a collaborative process and may adjust techniques as clients learn what fits them best.

Session formats are not specified in the original biography, so confirm current options before booking. Many people find remote sessions help fit therapy into a busy schedule, whether they need a shorter check in, want to avoid travel time, or prefer not to be on camera for every meeting. Licensed professionals can adapt CBT, DBT, and mindfulness exercises to different session lengths and rhythms so practical skills are usable in everyday life.