About Mary
Mary Shands is a Licensed Professional Counselor with more than 12 years of clinical experience in Missouri and Texas. She draws on years of work in schools, insurance settings, veteran services, substance use treatment, and sexual offender programming. Mary listens carefully and brings an energetic, warm style to sessions.
Mary focuses on everyday problems that wear people down. She helps with stress, anxiety, depression, trauma and addiction. She also supports people dealing with grief, relationship and intimacy concerns, parenting strain, and life transitions.
Background and approach
Her background includes work with veterans and clients across a wide age range. That experience informs practical approaches in therapy. Sessions tend to be straightforward and goal-focused rather than full of technical language.
Mary uses several therapy methods to fit different needs. She draws from attachment-based ideas, client-centered listening, cognitive behavioral techniques, emotionally-focused work, and existential perspectives. She adapts these methods to what each person brings into the room.
People meet Mary when they want clear conversations about coping skills, behavior change, and emotional understanding. She also offers coaching-style support for practical steps forward. Her approach balances empathy with active problem solving.
Mary works with English-speaking clients and is licensed in both MO and TX. She provides presentations and trainings in professional settings, and continues required ongoing education to keep her practice current.
How Mary’s Approaches Translate to Online Work
Attachment-based ideas focus on how relationships shape feelings and behavior; online sessions use this lens to look at patterns that affect close connections and trust. Client-centered therapy emphasizes listening and reflection; in a virtual session Mary uses open questions and reflective responses to help people feel heard and understood. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) breaks down thoughts, feelings, and actions into manageable pieces; online sessions often include simple exercises and homework to practice new skills between meetings.Choosing the right approach is a shared process. Mary will ask about your goals, preferences, and what has or hasn't worked before. Together you can try different strategies and shift course if something does not fit. The aim is to find methods that feel useful for your life.
Online formats give practical flexibility. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation and visual cues. Phone sessions can fit into a shorter break or be easier when bandwidth is limited. Live chat and text-based messaging let people check in between meetings or use written reflection if that feels more comfortable. These options help make regular work on issues like anxiety, grief, or addiction more doable alongside daily responsibilities.
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What this counselor 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