About Malaika
Malaika Ward is a Licensed Master Social Worker who brings five years of clinical experience to her work in Michigan. She focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, grief, addictions, and ADHD. Her style is direct and compassionate, and she aims to make beginning therapy easier for people who feel unsure or overwhelmed.
Malaika believes each person knows their own story and has strengths to build on. Sessions are practical and goal-oriented, with attention to what feels doable in daily life.
Background and approach
She uses clear tools to reduce symptoms and improve coping, then adjusts them to fit what the client prefers. She often pairs thought-focused strategies with conversations about meaning and motivation. That mix helps with mood challenges, substance concerns, and life changes.
She also addresses relationship strain, self-esteem, sleep problems, and work stress in concrete ways. Malaika supports people dealing with trauma, chronic illness, caregiver stress, and complicated feelings like guilt, shame, or abandonment. She brings patience when clients work through grief, infidelity, or the confusion that follows major transitions.
Sessions are offered in English and can be scheduled online by following the site’s Start Therapy steps. Malaika aims to meet people where they are and collaborate on clear, practical steps forward.
How her approaches translate to online therapy
Malaika uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people spot unhelpful thinking and try small behavior changes. CBT is often used for anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and some aspects of ADHD and addiction recovery.She also draws on Motivational Interviewing to explore a person’s readiness for change and to build motivation without pressure. That approach can be useful when someone is weighing steps around substance use, health habits, or big life decisions.
Finding the right mix of methods is part of the process. Malaika will work together with each person to choose approaches that fit their goals and preferences, and she adjusts them as progress unfolds.
Online sessions are offered by video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy more convenient. Video is useful when a fuller conversation is needed, phone can be easier when bandwidth is limited, and messaging or live chat suits quick check-ins or flexible scheduling. These options help people fit therapy into work, caregiving, or travel schedules while keeping a steady therapeutic rhythm.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Depression
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Immigration issues
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Phobias
- Postpartum depression
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Relationship issues
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
- Smoking / vaping cessation
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed
- Michigan
- Languages
- English
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