About Frances
Frances Merz is a Licensed Professional Counselor in New Jersey with 19 years of clinical experience. She helps people who want to make changes in their lives, such as handling stress, improving self-esteem, or managing anxiety. Frances speaks plainly and focuses on practical steps people can use right away.
She uses a mix of counseling methods chosen to fit each person's needs and strengths. Sessions tend to focus on solving specific problems, making decisions, and planning concrete next steps.
Background and approach
Frances often works with adults facing life transitions, career challenges, or issues common to young adults and college students. Frances has supported people dealing with parenting strain, grief, trauma and abuse, bipolar disorder, depression, sleeping problems, and compassion fatigue. She is also experienced supporting those navigating medical systems, including people considering weight loss surgery or recovering after such procedures.
She will help brainstorm questions for medical providers and plan ways to cope with health-related stress. Her style is collaborative and flexible rather than one-size-fits-all. She emphasizes that counseling takes effort from both the counselor and the client, and she adjusts techniques based on what is helpful.
Frances aims to empower people to reach their goals and feel more in control of daily life. Frances generally communicates Monday through Thursday and typically replies to messages within 24 hours. She offers sessions using several remote formats to make it easier for people to fit counseling into busy lives.
How Frances Uses Practical Approaches in Online Therapy
Frances uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people notice unhelpful thoughts and try small behavior changes. CBT is often used for anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and social anxiety by breaking problems into manageable steps.She also draws on Solution-Focused Therapy, which centers on identifying strengths and building short-term goals. This approach is useful when someone wants quick, concrete changes or help deciding what to try next.
Choosing the right approach is a team process. Frances meets people where they are, listens to their goals, and then suggests methods to try. She adjusts the plan as progress is made and encourages regular check-ins to see what works best.
Online therapy offers practical flexibility. Video calls let most conversations feel face to face, phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited, live chat works well for brief check-ins, and text messaging supports ongoing reflection between appointments. These options make it easier to fit counseling into work, school, or caregiving schedules and to keep momentum between sessions.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Self esteem
- Career difficulties
Also listed
- ADHD
- Bipolar disorder
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Family conflicts
- Grief
- Life purpose
- Parenting issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 19 years
- Licensed
- New Jersey
- Languages
- English
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