About Michelle
Michelle Lesagonicz is a licensed clinical social worker with 11 years of experience working with adults in Alaska. She centers sessions on each person’s needs and helps people make practical changes they actually want. Michelle speaks plainly and focuses on clear communication and respect in every meeting.
She uses a client-centered stance alongside cognitive behavioral techniques and mindfulness practices. That means sessions usually begin by listening closely to what is most urgent for the person, then trying small, manageable steps to reduce symptoms and improve daily life.
Background and approach
Meditation and simple mindfulness tools are introduced when they fit the person's goals. Michelle offers help for stress, general anxiety, panic and phobias, depression, and trauma-related concerns. She also supports people dealing with chronic pain, sleep problems, workplace stress, and substance use struggles.
Relationship and family strains, parenting stress, and issues around self-esteem or life transitions are part of her focus too. In practical terms, she teaches coping strategies you can use between sessions. That may include thought tracking, behavioral experiments, grounding exercises, and short goal-focused plans.
Sessions emphasize skills you can try right away and adjust as needed. People who work with Michelle can expect straightforward guidance, gentle encouragement, and an emphasis on building decisions that fit their life. She aims to help people gain more balance, self-awareness, and a clearer path forward.
How therapeutic approaches translate to online care
Client-centered therapy focuses on hearing the person's priorities and building goals together. In an online session this looks like starting with what feels most important to the person and shaping the plan to fit their day-to-day life.Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, involves noticing unhelpful thoughts and testing them with small behavioral steps. Online CBT often includes short exercises to try during the week, thought logs, and review of what changed in the next session. Mindfulness therapy adds simple attention and breathing practices to reduce reactivity and calm the nervous system; these are taught and practiced in sessions and used as brief exercises between meetings.
Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will suggest options based on your needs, goals, and preferences, and then adapt techniques as progress is checked. That collaborative process helps ensure the methods fit your life.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging, which make scheduling more flexible. Video lets you see facial cues and practice exercises together. Phone sessions can be a good fit when bandwidth is limited or when a short check-in is needed. Live chat and text are useful for brief updates, homework review, or when written reflection feels easier. These options help people fit therapy into work, caregiving, or remote-living schedules.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Addictions
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Emptiness
- Family problems
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 11 years
- Licensed
- Alaska
- Languages
- English
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