Meet Marcos “Sal” Salinas, LPC
I do this work because I believe real change is possible, and I've watched it happen over and over again with people who came in convinced it wouldn't. Helping someone truly understand themselves and then actually live differently because of it, that never gets old. That's why I show up every single day.
Hi, I’m Sal. I Am Glad You’re Here
I grew up learning what a lot of us learn early, that keeping the peace was safer than speaking up. That being easy to be around mattered more than being honest about what you needed. That love and belonging felt conditional, and the best way to hold onto them was to make yourself as little trouble as possible.
I didn't have a name for any of that for a long time. I just knew that some things felt harder than they should, that certain moments would hit differently, that I'd react in ways I didn't fully understand, that no matter how much I understood about myself, something kept getting in the way of actually changing.
That experience, both personal and professional, is what brought me to this work. And it's what makes me genuinely passionate about it. I'm not here to sit across from you with a clipboard and a diagnosis. I'm here because I know what it means to finally understand why you are the way you are, and to discover that you were never broken. You were just responding to what life handed you.
How We'll Work Together
I'm a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas, and I work with individuals healing from childhood trauma and couples who are ready to stop repeating painful patterns and actually reconnect. I offer sessions in both English and Spanish, because healing should never be limited by language.
My approach combines EMDR, Parts Work/IFS, Somatic therapy, and Gottman Method, not as a rigid formula, but as a set of tools I draw from based on what you actually need. Some days that looks like processing a memory that's been stuck for years. Some days it looks like understanding the part of you that shuts down when someone gets too close. Some days it looks like helping you and your partner finally hear each other instead of just waiting for your turn to speak.
What the People I Work With Experience
With the people I work with consistently tell me is that they feel heard in a way they haven't before. That they start to understand the root of behaviors they've spent years judging themselves for. And one of my favorite parts of this work is watching someone return the following week and tell me, before I even ask, what they noticed about themselves. The moments they caught themselves responding differently. The times they chose themselves without the guilt. That's not me doing the work. That's them. I just get to witness it.
I'm not going to let you come to therapy every week and just vent. I care about you too much for that. A lot of people come to me having already tried therapy that felt like talking in circles, and I want something different for you. I'll be honest with you even when it's uncomfortable, because I think you deserve that more than you deserve to feel managed.
I'll gently push back when something needs to be looked at more closely. And I won't pretend that real healing is always comfortable, it isn't. But there's a difference between sitting with discomfort in a supported way and being pushed somewhere you aren't ready to go. We'll always do the former, never the latter. Some of the hardest things we talk about end up having a moment of laughter in them somewhere, and I think that's actually part of how healing happens.
What It’s Like to Work With Me
Let’s Talk
If something in what you've read feels familiar, the patterns, the exhaustion, the sense that you've been working so hard to understand yourself but something still isn't shifting, I'd really like to talk.
Choosing a therapist is one of the most personal decisions you'll make. So before we dive into anything, let's just have a conversation. A free 15-minute consultation where you can get a feel for who I am, ask whatever you need to ask, and decide whether this feels right. No pressure. No performance. Just an honest conversation between two people figuring out if we're a good fit.
I hope to hear from you.