Maria Farraye-Biggs
Compassionate, experienced social worker focused on growth
LCSW New Jersey
- Experience
- 30 years in practice
- Focus areas
- Stress, Anxiety, Trauma and abuse, Parenting
- Approaches
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Client-Centered Therapy
- Languages
- English, Spanish
About Maria
Maria Farraye-Biggs is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with three decades of professional experience helping people navigate stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, parenting challenges, ADHD, and relationship concerns.
Background and approach
She practices from New Jersey and brings lived experience to her clinical work, having navigated medical issues, the experience of being a first-generation American, and parenting a child with ADHD. This background informs her empathy and understanding of the practical challenges clients face.
Her approach blends several evidence-informed methods, including cognitive behavioral techniques, client-centered strategies, psychodynamic perspectives, emotionally-focused ideas, and solution-focused tools. Maria emphasizes building trust and rapport first, working collaboratively while offering guidance and gentle challenge when appropriate.
She adopts a strengths-based, interactive stance, aiming to help people identify goals, develop coping skills, and move through life transitions toward greater well-being.
Maria offers services in English and Spanish and has experience across a wide range of concerns such as grief, intimacy issues, bipolar disorder, workplace stress, multicultural and gender-related matters, postpartum challenges, and family-of-origin or divorce-related difficulties. She frames therapy as a shared journey, supporting clients to recognize their capacities, make changes, and pursue meaningful goals.
Therapeutic approaches and online care that fit your life
Maria integrates Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) into her work to help clients identify unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and develop practical skills for managing symptoms like anxiety, depression, and stress. CBT is goal-oriented and often involves learning new coping strategies and testing different ways of thinking in everyday situations.She also uses client-centered therapy, which centers on empathic listening and supporting a person’s own insights and choices. This approach is useful for building self-understanding and strengthening motivation for change. Additionally, emotionally-focused ideas guide work on relationship and intimacy issues by helping clients identify and shift patterns of emotional response.
Deciding on the right approach is a collaborative process. Maria will explore a client’s goals, preferences, and needs and recommend methods that fit the situation, adjusting techniques over time as progress is made. She emphasizes an interactive partnership where clients’ strengths and experiences shape the plan.
Online therapy options include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging, which make it easier to access care around work, family, and other commitments. These formats provide flexibility for scheduling and allow continued therapeutic work from different locations while maintaining a consistent therapeutic relationship with a licensed professional.
Frequently asked questions
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Areas of expertise
Primary focus
Also works with
Additional focus areas
Therapeutic approaches
Experience
30+ years
Licensed
New Jersey
Languages
English, Spanish