About Maria
Maria Stannard is a person-centred counsellor who aims to make beginning therapy feel manageable. Maria uses plain language and a steady approach to help people dealing with stress and anxiety. She encourages clients to tell their story at their own pace and highlights the strengths they already have.
Maria works from a human-focused view that centres the person in the room. She listens without rushing and helps people notice patterns that make life harder.
Background and approach
Sessions tend to be practical and grounded, with time spent on what feels achievable between meetings. Her background includes five years of clinical experience and registration with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, shown as BACP. That registration indicates ongoing professional standards and an emphasis on reflective practice.
Maria has experience supporting people with depression, trauma and abuse, relationship and family tensions, grief, eating concerns, and self-esteem issues. There is also additional focus on autism and Asperger syndrome, body image, caregiver stress, dissociation, gender dysphoria, and obsessions and compulsions among other areas. Sessions are offered in English and Maria accepts international clients.
She aims to work collaboratively so that each person’s goals shape the pace and focus of therapy. The first meetings typically clarify immediate concerns and set small, practical goals for change.
How Maria’s approaches work online
Client-Centred Therapy places the person’s experience at the heart of sessions and focuses on listening, empathy, and supporting each person to find their own solutions. It suits people who want a non-directive space to make sense of feelings and choices.Trauma-Focused Therapy concentrates on the effects of past harm and on stabilising reactions in everyday life. It includes practical ways to reduce distress and to build more manageable routines for people who have experienced abuse or frightening events.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. Maria will discuss options with each person and tailor sessions to goals, needs, and preferences. Together they set the pace and check what is helping as therapy progresses.
Online sessions can be flexible to fit busy lives. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when a fuller interaction is useful. Phone sessions use less bandwidth and can be easier for short check-ins. Live chat and text-based messaging make it possible to share thoughts when writing feels easier or scheduling is tight. These formats make it simpler to maintain continuity and to choose what suits a person on any given day.
Questions people ask
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How much clinical experience does she have?
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Stress, Anxiety
- Relationship issues
- Family conflicts
Also listed
- Autism and Asperger Syndrome
- Body image
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Communication problems
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Domestic violence
- Eating disorders
- Emptiness
- Family problems
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Intellectual disability
- Isolation / loneliness
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Trauma and abuse
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 5 years
- Licensed
- Languages
- English
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