Molly Steinberg

Compassionate, Evidence-Based Care Rooted in Your Unique Experience

Molly brings a gentle but direct therapeutic style that balances validation with actionable strategies. She believes you are the expert in your own life, and therapy works best as a partnership built on collaboration, curiosity, and mutual respect. Clients describe feeling truly heard and understood in sessions with Molly—never judged, never rushed. Her approach is grounded in the belief that meaningful change happens when you can approach yourself with more compassion while building concrete skills to manage symptoms and navigate life’s challenges.

Drawing from her experience as a psychiatric counselor in an inpatient behavioral health unit in Baltimore, Molly developed a strong foundation in crisis support and complex mental health care. This background gives her a unique understanding of what it takes to support individuals during their most difficult moments, and she brings that same steady, empathetic presence to every session. Whether you’re facing a mental health crisis, working through long-standing patterns, or navigating the complexities of emerging adulthood, Molly provides individualized care that honors your lived experience and meets you exactly where you are.

Clinical Focus

Molly specializes in supporting adults (18+) navigating anxiety, panic, depression, and mood disorders. If you find yourself overwhelmed by racing thoughts, constant worry, or feelings of hopelessness that interfere with your daily life, Molly offers evidence-based strategies to help you regain a sense of control and build resilience. She has particular expertise working with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), using Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) to help clients reduce compulsions, relate differently to intrusive thoughts, and reclaim time and energy from rituals that have taken over their lives.

A significant part of Molly’s practice focuses on young adult development—the messy, uncertain period of emerging adulthood where you’re expected to figure out your career, relationships, identity, and life direction all at once. She understands the unique pressures facing young adults today: navigating academic demands and career planning when the future feels uncertain, building healthy relationships and setting boundaries, exploring identity and figuring out who you are outside of others’ expectations, managing the transition to independence and adult responsibilities, and coping with the anxiety that comes with major life decisions. Molly also provides affirming, knowledgeable support for LGBTQIA+ individuals, creating a safe space to explore identity, relationships, and the specific challenges facing queer and trans communities. She offers sex-positive therapy and support for individuals in non-monogamous relationships, approaching these topics with openness, curiosity, and zero judgment.

Molly works extensively with individuals who have experienced trauma and PTSD, using a trauma-informed lens that emphasizes safety, empowerment, and healing at your own pace. She supports clients through life transitions, grief and loss, and provides compassionate care for individuals with neurodivergence and those managing schizophrenia, recognizing that mental health challenges exist on a spectrum and that every person’s experience is valid and deserving of respectful, individualized support.

Therapeutic Approach

Molly’s therapeutic approach is integrative and trauma-informed, weaving together evidence-based modalities to fit your unique needs and goals. She draws from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help you identify and challenge unhelpful thought patterns that fuel anxiety and depression, replacing them with more balanced, realistic perspectives that improve your daily functioning. Molly incorporates Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help you develop psychological flexibility—learning to accept difficult thoughts and feelings rather than struggling against them, while taking committed action toward the life you want to build. For clients with OCD, she uses Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), the gold-standard treatment that helps you gradually face feared situations without engaging in compulsions, reducing anxiety over time and breaking the cycle that keeps OCD in control.

Her approach also integrates humanistic frameworks, which means therapy is always grounded in genuine warmth, collaboration, and curiosity. Molly believes you have the capacity for growth and self-understanding, and her role is to create the supportive environment where that can happen. She views therapy as a space to explore what progress and growth look like for each individual, offering steady support without judgment as you work toward meaningful change.

Clients working with Molly appreciate her ability to be both warm and direct—she’ll validate your feelings while also gently challenging you to approach yourself with more compassion and take steps toward the life you want. Her therapeutic style encourages you to live in alignment with your values and goals, not with fear or others’ expectations. Molly’s work is rooted in a deep belief in empowerment, personal growth, and your inherent worth exactly as you are.

Background, Education & Experience

Molly earned her Master of Science in Clinical Professional Counseling from Loyola University Maryland. Before joining Bethesda Therapy, she worked as a psychiatric counselor in an inpatient behavioral health unit in Baltimore, where she gained extensive experience supporting individuals in acute mental health crises and developed specialized skills in complex care coordination, trauma-informed intervention, and crisis stabilization.

Beyond her clinical work, Molly is passionate about creativity and self-expression. She enjoys drawing and creating art, spending time outdoors, lifting weights, and spending quality time with her cats. These personal interests inform her holistic understanding of wellness and the many ways people find meaning, joy, and balance in their lives.