Mary Shands
Calm guidance for practical family concerns
- Credentials
- LPC
- Experience
- 12 years
- Licensed in
- Missouri, Texas
- Languages
- English
- Format
- Online sessions
About Mary
Mary Shands is a Licensed Professional Counselor with 12 years of clinical experience. She holds licenses in Missouri and Texas - MO LPC 2014024447 and TX LPC 77506. Mary has supported people across many life stages and settings, including schools, veterans programs, substance use treatment, and work with sexual offender treatment and insurance settings.
Mary listens first and asks practical questions next. She takes a warm, energetic approach and focuses on clear goals.
Background and approach
Sessions often include short-term skills practice and conversations that help people handle stress, anxiety, and relationship strain. Her background includes school counseling in both special and general education, work in veteran services, and time in residential and outpatient treatment settings. Mary has experience with grief, trauma, parenting struggles, addiction-related issues, and separation concerns tied to adoption.
Therapy with Mary uses familiar methods such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Client-Centered approaches, blended with mindfulness ideas and solution-focused steps. She adapts methods to what each person needs and pays attention to practical change over time. Mary also provides trainings and presentations for groups and organizations.
She stays current on required training and brings straightforward guidance to conversations about coping, self-esteem, and life transitions. People looking for a therapist who listens and offers concrete next steps may find her style direct and supportive. She speaks English and sees clients in Texas while holding licensure in both Texas and Missouri.
How her approaches translate to online care
Mary often uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help people identify unhelpful thinking and try new behaviors. CBT is practical and works well for worries, low mood, and sleep or eating changes.She also uses Attachment-Based Therapy ideas, which look at patterns in close relationships and how early connections affect current bonds. That approach can help with intimacy concerns, trust issues, and relationship patterns that surface in parenting and family situations.
Finding the right approach is part of the work together. She will talk with each person about goals and preferences, then suggest techniques and adjust them over time. Collaboration guides the choice of methods rather than a one-size-fits-all plan.
Online therapy lets people meet by video, talk by phone, or use live chat and text messaging for shorter check-ins. These options make it easier to fit sessions into busy family schedules, travel limitations, or work hours. Licensed professionals can use these formats to teach skills, practice conversations, and offer coaching between sessions.
Attachment-Based Therapy
Looks at how early bonds shaped what you expect from closeness, and how that plays out now with a partner, a parent, or your own children.
Client-Centered Therapy
The direction comes from you rather than from a set programme. The therapist offers a warm, non-judgemental space to think out loud and work at your own pace. Online, this rests on the relationship rather than on being in the same room.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT looks at the link between what you think, how you feel, and what you do. You work on noticing unhelpful patterns and practising steadier responses. It suits online sessions well, because much of the work happens between appointments and can be talked through from anywhere.
Frequently asked questions
What kinds of concerns does Mary work with?
What is her general style in sessions?
How long has she been practicing?
What credentials and region apply to this therapist?
Which languages are supported and are international clients accepted?
In what session formats does she meet people?
How are sessions priced and billed?
What is the first step to begin working with her?
Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Addictions
- Relationship issues
Also works with
- 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
Next step
Talk to Mary
- Takes a few minutes
- Nothing to set up just to look
- Stop at any point