Marilyn Medow, LCSW

Marilyn Medow is a licensed clinical social worker with 35 years of experience based in Illinois. She helps people facing stress, anxiety, depression, midlife shifts, and trauma-related concerns. Her tone is warm and straightforward, and she encourages people who are taking the first step toward change.

Her early work focused on domestic violence, child welfare, and crisis intervention. That experience shaped her understanding of trauma and of high-stress situations. Over the years she has broadened her skills and draws on a range of evidence-based therapeutic techniques suited to each person’s needs.

Marilyn aims to create an open, nonjudgmental space where people can talk through painful memories and current struggles. She often helps people reframe stuck patterns so they can try different ways of coping. Practical steps and new perspectives are part of how she works.

She also supports people dealing with relationship and communication problems, caregiving stress, and life transitions such as divorce or financial strain. Issues like abandonment, attachment concerns, and body image are other areas she helps address.

Her training includes an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point and a master’s degree from Smith College. Marilyn describes therapy as a shared process and stays with people through each phase of healing and self-discovery.

How therapeutic approaches translate to online care

Marilyn draws on well-established, evidence-based techniques that focus on understanding past wounds and changing current patterns. One approach helps people process traumatic memories and their emotional impact by working steadily through the story, noticing how it affects thoughts and behavior. This can be useful for survivors of abuse and for people dealing with long-term stress.

Another common strand of work focuses on practical coping skills and behavioral changes. Those techniques teach simple strategies for managing anxiety, improving sleep, and reducing impulsive reactions. They also support people trying new ways of handling relationships, finances, or caregiving demands.

Finding the right mix of approaches is part of the process. Marilyn collaborates with each person to identify goals, tries methods that match those goals, and adjusts the plan as needs change. The work is planned together rather than imposed.

Confirm the available session formats before booking, as the biography does not list specific delivery methods. Online therapy can make it easier to fit appointments into busy schedules, skip commuting time, and check in from wherever it’s convenient. It can also allow shorter phone or video check-ins when that better fits a day, or fuller sessions when more time is needed.