About Mary
Mary Ruhland is a licensed social worker with 30 years of experience who focuses on helping people manage stress, anxiety, depression, and trauma. She uses straightforward, person-focused care to guide individuals through difficult feelings. Mary aims to create an honest, calm space where clients can talk about what is most pressing to them.
She draws on Client-Centered methods to listen deeply and prioritize each person's goals. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps her and clients identify unhelpful thoughts and try practical behavior changes.
Background and approach
Dialectical Behavior Therapy offers tools for managing strong emotions and reducing impulsive reactions. Mary pays attention to how relationships, attachment patterns, and past hurts shape current struggles. She helps people who face grief, panic attacks, issues with intimacy, or problems with control and communication.
Work may include stepping through coping skills, practicing new ways to talk with others, and rebuilding self-esteem. Her background includes long clinical experience in Iowa and licenses listed as LISW and CSW-PIP. Those credentials reflect a lifetime of direct care and practice with adults dealing with mood disorders, post-traumatic stress, and addiction-related problems.
Sessions are offered in English and can take place by video, phone, live chat, or text messaging. Mary supports a collaborative process that balances practical strategies with emotional understanding so clients can move toward clearer choices and steadier days.
Approaches for online care and how they help
Mary uses Client-Centered Therapy to focus on each person’s priorities, offering a listening-based approach that helps individuals clarify what they want to change and set personal goals. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is used to spot and shift unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, which can reduce anxiety and improve mood. Dialectical Behavior Therapy supplies concrete skills for emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and improving interpersonal effectiveness when emotions feel overwhelming.Choosing the right approach is a shared process. Mary will discuss goals and try specific methods together, adjusting the plan based on what feels most helpful. The aim is a collaborative path that balances practical skill-building with emotional understanding so progress matches the client’s needs.
Online formats include video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging. Video works well for in-depth sessions where visual cues matter. Phone sessions can be a good option when bandwidth is limited or a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat or text messaging supports quick exchanges, skill coaching between sessions, and more flexible scheduling. These options make it easier to fit therapy into busy days while using therapeutic techniques that address anxiety, mood, and relationship concerns.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Body image
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Eating disorders
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Mood disorders
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Women's issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 30 years
- Licensed
- Iowa, South Dakota
- Languages
- English
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