Valerie Malicki, LPCC

Valerie Malicki is an Ohio-based licensed professional with more than 20 years of combined experience as a therapist, life coach, and certified mentor. As an LPCC - Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor - she focuses on helping people overcome internal barriers and build practical skills that lead to lasting change. Her work centers on relationships, intimacy-related concerns, parenting challenges, and self-esteem, and she integrates coaching elements to help clients move from insight to action.

Valerie offers sessions grounded in empathy and hope, paired with concrete, doable steps tailored to each person. She supports clients navigating attachment and abandonment issues, communication and control struggles, forgiveness, guilt and shame, isolation, and questions about life purpose and midlife transitions. Her practice also addresses mood disorders, post-traumatic stress, body image, caregiver stress, pregnancy and childbirth concerns, and financial or practical stressors that affect well-being.

Outside of clinical work Valerie draws on decades of personal experience as a partner and parent. She has been with her husband for nearly 20 years, homeschools their four children, and lives on a rural homestead with chickens, rottweilers, butterflies, and bullfrogs. That blend of professional training and lived experience informs a warm, practical style aimed at helping people create meaningful, joyful lives.

Therapeutic Approaches for Online Relationship and Trauma Work

Valerie uses Imago Relationship Therapy to help partners understand recurring patterns and rebuild connection. This approach focuses on how early experiences shape current interactions and offers structured dialogues that promote empathy and repair. Narrative Therapy is used to separate people from their problems by exploring the stories they tell about themselves and rewriting those narratives to reflect strengths and possibility - this can be especially helpful for identity, self-esteem, and life purpose work. Trauma-Focused Therapy targets the effects of traumatic experiences by helping clients process difficult memories and develop coping strategies to reduce their ongoing impact.

Finding the right approach is part of the therapeutic process. Valerie works collaboratively with each person to identify methods that fit their needs, goals, and preferences, and she adapts strategies as progress unfolds. Licensed professionals often combine techniques to address the whole person rather than a single symptom.

Offering video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging allows Valerie to meet clients where they are. Online options increase flexibility for scheduling, reduce travel time, and make it easier to maintain continuity of care during busy life phases, while still supporting meaningful therapeutic work.