Bilingual therapy for Houston, Texas — online, in the language you think in

Houston is the most diverse city in the country, and its Latino community is a world unto itself — Mexican families in the East End and Magnolia Park, Central Americans in Gulfton, South Americans spread across the west side, some here for generations and some here for two years. What a lot of them share is the experience of carrying a great deal quietly: holding down demanding work, sending money home, raising kids between two cultures, and not having anyone to say the hard parts to in the language the hard parts happened in.

A city that big can be lonely in a specific way. You are surrounded by people and still feel unseen — and the people who do know you are often the exact ones you can't be honest with, because they're your family, your church, your job. That is the version of Houston I most often meet on a screen: capable, over-extended, and out of anyone safe to fall apart in front of.

We work on low self-esteem, anxiety that never fully switches off, grief that got postponed because someone had to keep everyone running, and the slow burnout of being the dependable one. I draw on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness, and a holistic, client-centered approach — at your pace, and you decide what we touch and when. For families navigating an immigration case, I also conduct bilingual immigration hardship evaluations — a clinical evaluation, not legal advice, and never a promise of any outcome; you can read how those work on the immigration page.

For a metro where a cross-town drive can eat two hours, telehealth isn't just convenient — it's what makes weekly therapy survivable. No traffic, no parking, no waiting room in your own neighborhood. You log on from home or a parked car, and the hour is entirely yours.

I'm Maria Teresa Valencia, MA, LPC — a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas (license #64813), licensed in Texas since 2009. I grew up on the Mexico border and know firsthand what it is to struggle with money and with language when English is not your first. We can do this entirely in Spanish if that's where your words live.