Move beyond survival mode.
Therapy can be a place to understand what you have been carrying, reconnect with yourself, and begin making the changes you have been putting off.
Dare To Flourish is the telehealth practice of Karla E. Marmolejos, LCSW — culturally responsive therapy for adults, couples and families navigating anxiety, trauma, relationships, life transitions, burnout and emotional overwhelm.
15 minutes, free, and no obligation to book a session afterward. Scheduling continues on Headway.
- Telehealth throughout New York State
- Therapy in English & Spanish
- Adults 17+, couples & families
- 13+ years of clinical experience
The practice
Growth asks something of you. That is what the name means.
Daring to flourish is not about optimism. It is about the particular courage it takes to look at what has happened to you, name what you have been doing to cope, and decide that the rest of your life does not have to run on those terms.
Difficult experiences shape people. They do not get the final say in who someone becomes. Much of what brings people to therapy began as an intelligent response to a hard situation — vigilance that kept you safe, self-sufficiency that was necessary, a habit of reading the room before you spoke. The work is rarely about removing those capacities. It is about understanding where they came from, noticing where they now cost more than they return, and building something with more room in it.
That is slow work some weeks and surprisingly quick in others. It is also collaborative. You are not handed a protocol here.
- Survival
- Understanding
- Healing
- Growth
- Flourishing
You may be here because
Some of this may sound familiar.
You cannot stop overthinking, and thinking harder has never once helped.
You have been in survival mode so long you are not sure what else feels like.
You are carrying more than the people around you realize.
You are successful by every external measure and something still feels missing.
Setting a boundary leaves you feeling guilty for days.
You have lost yourself somewhere in the process of taking care of everyone else.
Your relationships keep arriving at the same argument by different routes.
Something in your life is changing and you are not sure who you are on the other side of it.
You would like to understand your emotions rather than keep managing around them.
Therapy services
Ways we might work together.
Most people arrive with more than one of these going on at once. Where you start is something we work out together.
Individual Therapy
One consistent hour that belongs to you — for adults 17 and older, in English or Spanish.
Anxiety & Trauma
For minds that run ahead, bodies that stay braced, and histories that still shape the present.
Stress, Burnout & Boundaries
For people who are dependable to everyone and running close to empty.
Couples & Family Therapy
Slowing down the conversation you keep having, and finding a better way through it.
Bilingual Therapy
Terapia en inglés y español — with a clinician who speaks both, so nothing needs translating.
Creator Mental Health
For people whose work happens in public, and the particular cost of staying visible.
Meet the founder
Karla E. Marmolejos, LCSW
Founder & Licensed Clinical Social Worker
I have spent more than thirteen years sitting with people through the parts of life that are hard to say out loud. What I have come to believe is fairly simple: people do better when they have somewhere they can be honest without managing anyone else’s reaction to it.
My style is collaborative and conversational. I ask questions, I offer what I notice, and I will gently push when something deserves pushing. I work in English and Spanish, and I pay close attention to culture, family, faith and identity where those matter to you — not as a checklist, but because they are usually part of the story.
- Credential
- Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)
- Licensed in
- New York State
- Experience
- 13+ years of clinical practice
- Education
- MSW, Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College
- Languages
- English and Spanish
How therapy works here
Therapy that meets you where you are.
You do not need the right words
Plenty of people arrive able to say only that something is wrong. Finding language for it is part of the work, not a prerequisite for starting.
Therapy is a collaboration
You are not handed a protocol. We work out together what is going on, what you want to be different, and what approach actually fits you.
You set the pace
Some people want to go straight to the hardest thing. Others need time before that is possible. Both are workable, and neither is doing this wrong.
Understanding, plus something to use
Insight matters — and so does having something concrete for a difficult Tuesday. We usually work on both at once.
Getting started
Three steps, and none of them are a commitment.
Connect
Schedule a free 15 minutes consultation at a time that works for you. If you would rather ask a question first, you can send a message instead — I respond within two business days.
Explore
We talk briefly about what is bringing you to therapy, you ask me anything you want to know, and we both get a sense of whether this is a good fit. There is no obligation to book a session afterward.
Begin
If we decide to go ahead, you complete intake paperwork and we schedule a first full session. From there we work out your goals together and adjust as we learn more.
Bilingual therapy
Therapy in English & Spanish
Terapia en inglés y español
Language is not a neutral container. Some memories are stored in one language and lose something in the other.
You can speak in whichever language the thought arrives in, and move between them within the same sentence if that is how you think. There is no need to translate yourself, and no need to explain cultural context before you can get to what you actually came to say.
Karla es bilingüe y ofrece terapia individual, de pareja y familiar en español. No se trata de traducir una sesión al español — se trata de hacer terapia en el idioma en el que usted piensa, siente y recuerda.
A professionally translated Spanish version of this website is planned. We would rather wait and do that properly than publish machine-translated pages about mental health — Spanish-language therapy is available now, regardless.
Creators & livestreamers
Your work lives online. Your wellbeing does not have to.
You can care deeply about what you make without letting it become the whole of who you are — but that separation takes deliberate work.
Creative work in public carries pressures that are largely invisible from outside it. The schedule has no natural end. The feedback is immediate, public and often personal. Your income depends on visibility, visibility depends on consistency, and consistency still has to be produced in the weeks when there is nothing left.
You will not have to explain the basics here — what a stream schedule is, why a platform change matters, or how parasocial dynamics work. We can start from the actual problem.
- Burnout in work with no natural stopping point
- Self-worth quietly attaching itself to metrics
- Online criticism, and the weight one comment can carry
- Parasocial dynamics and audience boundaries
- The distance between the persona and the person
- Performance pressure and creative block
- Separating work from life when both live on one device
- Relationships that need attention your work keeps taking
This is psychotherapy provided by a licensed clinical social worker — an area of focus and genuine interest, not a specialist certification, and not coaching for growing a channel.
Common questions
The things people usually want to know first.
Who do you work with?
I work with adults aged 17 and older, as well as couples and families, throughout New York State. Clients come to therapy for a wide range of reasons — anxiety and overthinking, trauma and survival-mode responses, depression, relationship and communication difficulties, life transitions, burnout, boundaries, self-esteem, caregiver stress, and the particular pressures of building a career in public.
Sessions are available in English and Spanish.
What happens during the consultation?
It is a brief, informal conversation — about 15 minutes. You can share a little about what brings you to therapy, in as much or as little detail as you like. I will tell you how I work, and you can ask me anything you want to know.
The purpose is to work out whether this feels like a good fit. There is no cost and no obligation to book a session afterward, and if I am not the right clinician for what you need, I will try to point you toward someone who is.
A consultation is not a therapy session, a clinical assessment, or a crisis service.
What happens in the first session?
The first full session is longer and more open-ended than the consultation. We will talk about what brought you here, some relevant history, what you have already tried, and what you would like to be different.
You will not be asked to relive anything difficult on day one. You set the pace. Toward the end we will usually sketch out some initial goals, though those often shift as the work develops — which is normal and useful information in itself.
Do you offer virtual therapy?
Yes — the practice is telehealth-only. All sessions take place by secure video, which means you can work with me from anywhere in New York State without traveling.
Do you accept insurance?
Yes. In-network plans are accepted through Headway, which verifies your coverage and shows your expected cost before you book.
Currently in network through Headway: Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Carelon Behavioral Health, Cigna.
Coverage and out-of-pocket responsibility vary by plan. Headway verifies your benefits and shows your expected cost before you book.
Credentialing with Alma is in progress, which may add further plans.
How long are sessions?
Sessions generally run 45–60 minutes.
Do you offer therapy in Spanish?
Yes. I am bilingual, and I provide individual, couples and family therapy in Spanish or English throughout New York State.
This is therapy conducted in Spanish by a Spanish-speaking clinician — not an English session delivered through an interpreter.
¿Prefiere español? Este sitio también está disponible en español en dare2flourish.com/es, y puede agendar una consulta gratuita de 15 minutos en el idioma que prefiera.
You don’t need to have everything figured out before you begin.
A short conversation is enough to start. We can talk about what has been going on, what you are looking for, and whether working together makes sense — with no pressure to decide anything on the call.
15 minutes, free, and no obligation to book a session afterward. Scheduling continues on Headway.
- Therapy in English & Spanish
- Telehealth across New York
- Response within two business days