About Mary
Mary Shands is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with 12 years of experience. She holds licenses in Missouri and Texas and has supported people facing anxiety, stress, depression, trauma, and addiction. Mary listens closely and brings an engaged, energetic presence to sessions.
Her background includes school counseling in special and general education, work with veterans, roles in substance use programs, and work in an insurance setting. She has also worked in a sexual offender treatment center and with people navigating adoption-related separation.
Background and approach
That range gives her familiarity with many life situations and stressors. Mary uses several practical approaches in therapy, including cognitive behavioral techniques and client-centered methods. She also draws on attachment-based ideas and emotionally-focused work when relationship patterns and closeness are central concerns.
Sessions often include clear steps to manage symptoms and build new habits. People who meet with Mary can expect straightforward conversation and active listening. She aims to help people talk through difficult feelings, sort priorities, and try small changes that add up.
Her style pairs warmth with direct, usable suggestions. Mary offers video calls, phone sessions, live chat, and text-based messaging to fit different schedules. She works with people across Texas and accepts international clients.
Sessions use a subscription that can be canceled at any time. To begin, a person chooses the Start Therapy button, completes a short matching questionnaire, and schedules based on the therapist's availability.
Therapeutic approaches for online care
Mary commonly uses cognitive behavioral therapy, which looks at how thoughts and behaviors keep problems going and teaches practical techniques to change them. CBT can help with anxiety, sleep, mood, and coping skills by breaking concerns into manageable steps and testing new behaviors.She also uses client-centered therapy that emphasizes understanding a person’s perspective. That approach focuses on listening, reflecting emotions, and helping people set their own goals. When relationship patterns are central, attachment-based and emotionally-focused ideas are brought in to look at closeness, trust, and interaction patterns.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. Mary will collaborate on which methods to try based on a person’s goals, preferences, and how they respond in early sessions. She adjusts tools and pacing to fit each person's needs.
Online sessions are offered via video calls, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging to make therapy fit daily life. Video is useful for a fuller conversation, phone can be easier when bandwidth is limited, and chat or messaging can suit quick check-ins or people who prefer typing. These options make it easier to keep consistent appointments and to use therapy in a way that matches schedule and comfort.
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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