Tonya Pleasant, LCPC

Tonya Pleasant is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with 25 years of experience. She helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, addictions, relationship problems, and parenting strains. Tonya focuses on practical steps that can make daily life feel more manageable. Her work emphasizes listening first and then offering concrete tools. She uses approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help people notice unhelpful thought patterns and take actions that match their values. Sessions include skill-building for coping, behavior changes, and clearer communication. Tonya draws on a long career in counseling and rehabilitation. Her background includes a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling from the University of Maryland, College Park, and earlier study in family therapy and community development. That combination informs a hopeful, strengths-focused way of working. She supports people through grief, life transitions, career stress, compassion fatigue, and challenges like sleep, eating, or intimacy-related issues. Tonya also addresses caregiver stress, divorce and separation concerns, and questions about life purpose and self-love. In sessions she prioritizes small, measurable changes. Clients can expect practical coping strategies, attention to personal strengths, and encouragement as they reach goals. Tonya works from Maryland and conducts therapy in English.

How therapeutic approaches translate to online work

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, helps people clarify what matters to them and take small steps in that direction. It focuses on values-based action and learning to live with difficult feelings rather than fighting them. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, looks at how thoughts influence feelings and behavior and teaches concrete skills to change unhelpful patterns. These skills can include planning behavior changes, testing assumptions, and practicing new responses between sessions.

Finding the right approach usually happens together. The therapist will talk with the person about goals, preferences, and what has or hasn’t helped before. From there Tonya can suggest which methods to emphasize and adjust the plan as progress is made, keeping the work collaborative and goal-focused.

The biography does not list specific online session formats, so confirm the available options before booking. In general, online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions into a busy life, reduce travel time, and allow short check-ins when a full office visit isn’t practical. It can also let people practice skills in their everyday routines and bring real-life examples to sessions for immediate feedback.