About Mary
Mary Shands is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with 12 years of clinical experience. She practices from Texas and brings a direct, warm approach to sessions. Mary listens closely and helps people untangle stress, anxiety, addiction, grief, and mood concerns.
Mary has worked in schools, insurance settings, substance-abuse programs, veterans services, and sexual-offender treatment. That range means she has seen many life situations and common strains firsthand. She has supported people dealing with trauma, depression, relationship and parenting difficulties, and separation related to adoption.
Background and approach
Her style is straightforward and conversational. Sessions focus on practical steps and on learning new ways to cope. She uses talking, skill-building, and mindfulness to help people manage symptoms and make daily life easier.
Common issues she addresses include eating and sleeping problems, anger and self-esteem struggles, career stress, and compassion fatigue. ADHD is listed among her focus areas, alongside trauma, addictions, and relationship concerns. She also helps people facing abandonment issues, body-image concerns, and first-responder stress.
Mary combines client-centered listening with cognitive-behavioral tools and attachment-aware work. She aims to form a working relationship that fits each person’s goals. Her approach is adaptable, and she discusses options so people can choose what feels most useful.
Mary speaks English and offers sessions online in various formats. She maintains licensure in Missouri and Texas and brings experience training groups and presenting on mental health topics.
Approach choices and online care
Attachment-based work focuses on how relationships shape feelings and behavior; it helps people understand patterns that show up in close relationships and reduce reactive responses. Client-centered therapy puts the person’s experience first and uses reflective listening so people feel heard and can make their own changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) looks at thoughts and behaviors together and teaches practical skills to change unhelpful patterns and manage symptoms. Mary will collaborate with clients to find which approach, or mix of approaches, fits best for their goals. Together they review needs, try techniques, and adjust the plan when something is not helping. The therapist frames this as a team effort so clients can steer what feels most useful. Online therapy offers flexibility that many people need. Video calls let for face-to-face conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions can be a good option when bandwidth is limited or a quieter check-in is needed. Live chat and text-based messaging work well for shorter check-ins, coaching-style support, or when writing feels easier than speaking. These options make it easier to fit sessions around work, family, or other commitments while accessing licensed professionals across distances.Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family conflicts
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Grief
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Immigration issues
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Intellectual disability
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 12 years
- Licensed
- Missouri, Texas
- Languages
- English
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