Online in North Carolina
(Online Only)
Working with me means entering a space where you don’t have to hold everything together. I bring warmth, clarity, and steady guidance to our work, helping you slow down, listen to what your body has been carrying, and make sense of your experience. Together, we create room for both practical change and deeper alignment, so growth feels grounded, intentional, and sustainable.
Client Focus
Session Format: Individual sessions.
Age Specialty: Adult
Demographic Expertise: Hispanic / Latino, LGBTQ+, Women clients.
Languages: English, Spanish
Treatment Approach
- Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) Helps people accept difficult thoughts and feelings instead of fighting them, while committing to actions that reflect their values. It blends mindfulness with practical behavior strategies.
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Combines CBT with mindfulness to help regulate emotions, tolerate stress, and build stronger relationships. Originally designed for borderline personality disorder, it’s now used more broadly.
- Feminist Therapy Addresses how gender roles, power, and social inequality affect mental health. It empowers clients to challenge limiting beliefs and systems.
- Internal Family Systems (IFS) Helps clients heal by working with different ‘parts’ of themselves, like inner critics or wounded children. It fosters harmony within the self.
- Motivational Interviewing (MI) A collaborative, client-centered approach that strengthens motivation for change. It is especially effective for addictions and health behaviors.
- Narrative Therapy Encourages people to view problems as separate from themselves and reframe their life story. It helps build resilience and self-identity.
- Relational Psychotherapy Emphasizes the healing power of the therapist-client relationship. It uses trust and safety as a foundation for change.
- Somatic Therapy Helps clients notice how emotions are stored in the body. It uses breath, movement, and awareness for healing trauma and stress.
Fees & Insurance
Fees
- Average Session Fee $150
- Affordable sliding scale therapy: apply if you may be eligible.
- Sliding Scale Individual 53-Minute Sessions: Start at $65 Sliding scale spots prioritize Spanish speakers who only speak Spanish and those without insurance. Currently full - no sliding spots are available at this time.
- Accepts Insurance
- BCBS, Aetna, MedCost
Education & Credentials
Paulina Mendez MSW, LCSWA, LCASA
- Female
- License # P019444
- Licensed in North Carolina
- Practicing Since 2023
Education: My work is shaped by years of community-based and equity-focused practice, trauma-informed training, and a belief that healing happens when people feel truly seen, held, and connected to themselves. I bring a grounded, relational approach that honors both practical growth and deeper inner wisdom.
Paulina Mendez Practice Details
Therapy Sessions
- Available Online for residents of North Carolina
- Online Therapy Details: SimplePractice Telehealth
Alegría Counseling offers trauma-informed, culturally responsive therapy for adults seeking support that feels both grounding and practical. My work is rooted in feminist, anti-oppressive, and relational care, and centers BIPOC and queer communities while welcoming all clients who are aligned with this approach.
Therapy with me is a space where you don’t have to perform strength or have everything figured out. We take time to slow down, make sense of what you’ve been carrying, and understand how your experiences, relationships, culture, and identity shape the way you move through the world. From that place of understanding, we work together to build skills, clarity, and momentum, so change feels intentional and sustainable, not forced.
I integrate nervous-system-aware practices, collaborative conversation, and practical tools to support emotional regulation, boundaries, communication, and values-aligned decision-making. One of my strengths as a therapist is helping people translate insight into action: supporting clients as they take meaningful steps forward while still honoring the need for care, rest, and reflection.
Alegría Counseling offers trauma-informed, culturally responsive therapy for adults seeking support that is both grounding and practical. My work is rooted in relational, anti-oppressive care and is shaped by years of community-based practice, systems awareness, and ancestral curanderismo traditions that emphasize presence, attunement, and being held in times of difficulty.
Therapy with me is a space to slow down and safely soften; to make sense of what’s been carried in the body, in relationships, and across time. I pay close attention to the nervous system, to patterns shaped by survival, and to what becomes possible when people are met with care, dignity, and steady support. From that place, we work together to build skills, clarity, and movement forward in ways that feel sustainable and aligned.
I integrate conversation, nervous-system-aware practices, and practical tools to support emotional regulation, boundaries, communication, and values-aligned decision-making. One of my strengths as a therapist is helping people translate reflection into action, supporting real change while honoring the need for rest, pacing, and humanity along the way.
This practice is especially supportive for people who are used to holding a lot: caregivers, helpers, first-generation and bicultural individuals, and those navigating trauma, grief, identity shifts, or major life transitions. Above all, Alegría Counseling is a space grounded in warmth, respect, and relational care, where healing is understood as something that happens in connection, not in isolation.