Mary Hargarten

Mary Hargarten is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist practicing in Wisconsin. She has 25 years of experience offering both in-person and online therapy. Mary takes a warm, nonjudgmental approach and aims to help people find practical ways to cope with life’s stresses.

She uses straightforward strategies drawn from cognitive behavioral methods, acceptance and commitment ideas, motivational interviewing, and client-centered work. Sessions focus on identifying strengths, clarifying goals, and building skills that fit daily life. She often helps people untangle family-of-origin patterns and find healthier ways of relating to others.

Common concerns Mary addresses include anxiety, depression, panic attacks, relationship and intimacy issues, grief, trauma and abuse, parenting strain, and anger. She also supports people facing life transitions such as midlife shifts, caregiving stress, divorce, and postpartum challenges. Mood disorders and issues related to aging are part of her broader focus as well.

Mary believes clients already carry many useful resources and that therapy is a collaborative effort to bring those out and strengthen them. She combines listening and practical problem solving, and she invites clients to set realistic goals and try small shifts between sessions. Her style is compassionate and occasionally lighthearted, while remaining focused on results.

To start, she asks clients to think about what matters most to them and what small changes would help. That practical orientation guides the work from the first meeting onward.

How her approaches translate to online therapy

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people clarify what matters to them and take small, practical steps toward those values while accepting difficult feelings. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing new behaviors to reduce symptoms like anxiety and panic. Client-centered therapy prioritizes the person's perspective, offering empathic listening and support while allowing clients to set their own pace and goals.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. Mary will collaborate with each person to decide which methods fit their needs and goals. She blends listening with concrete tools so clients can try strategies between sessions and adjust the plan as progress is made.

The practical benefits of online therapy include easier fitting of sessions into busy schedules and avoiding travel time, which can make routine check-ins more manageable. Since specific session formats are not specified here, confirm current options before booking so you know what will be available. The emphasis is on making therapy work within everyday life and finding approaches that can be applied between meetings.