About Mary
Dr. Mary “Em” Ryan helps people who are feeling overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, grief or depression. She supports those facing relationship strain, trouble sleeping, addiction concerns and issues with self‑esteem.
She also offers guidance for career changes, parenting strain and navigating big life transitions. Dr Mary “Em” Ryan speaks English, Spanish and French and has 23 years of experience in the field. She aims to make therapy straightforward and approachable.
How Mary works
She creates a calm space where people can talk about hard things without fear of judgement. Sessions focus on practical steps as well as understanding feelings and patterns that get in the way of daily life. Her way of working draws on several well-known approaches.
She uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help people clarify values and take meaningful action. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is used to identify unhelpful thoughts and try out new behaviours. Emotionally‑Focused methods help with understanding and reshaping emotional responses in close relationships.
Sessions are conversational and goal‑oriented. Practical tools and short exercises are often given to try between meetings. Where helpful, she will adapt the pace and focus to each person’s needs and life situation.
Her background includes long experience supporting people through trauma, family stress, end‑of‑life issues and identity concerns such as gender dysphoria. She also offers support around ADHD, compassion fatigue and first responder issues. This mix of topics means she is used to working with complex, overlapping challenges.
To begin, people complete a short matching questionnaire and book a suitable time. Therapy is delivered online in a range of formats to fit different schedules and preferences.
Mary lists 10 ways of working on the entry:
What Mary works with
The areas below are the ones Mary selected when setting up a profile. The first few are listed as the main focus; the rest are also named.
- Stress, Anxiety
- LGBT
- Relationship issues
Also listed
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Coaching
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Depression
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Family conflicts
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Intimacy-related issues
- Isolation / loneliness
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Multicultural concerns
- Narcissism
- Parenting issues
- Post-traumatic stress
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-love
- Sleeping disorders
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Training and background
| Register | BACP |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 23 |
| Languages | English, Spanish, French |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | United Kingdom |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Therapeutic approaches for online support
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps people identify what matters most to them and take small, values‑based steps even when feelings are difficult. It is useful for stress, anxiety, low motivation and coping with big changes. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy focuses on the link between thoughts, feelings and actions and uses practical experiments to change unhelpful patterns; it is often used for anxiety, depression and sleep problems. Emotionally‑Focused work looks at how people respond to strong emotions and teaches ways to understand and shift those responses, which can help with relationship and intimacy issues.Choosing the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will talk through goals, preferences and how you like to work. Then she will suggest methods likely to help and adjust them as you try them out, so the plan stays practical and responsive.
Online therapy is offered by video call, phone, live chat or text‑based messaging. Video is useful for face‑to‑face conversation and visual cues, phone calls suit lower bandwidth or hands‑free check‑ins, chat can be a shorter way to process thoughts between sessions and messaging supports ongoing reflection. These options make it easier to fit therapy around work, family and travel.
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Common questions
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A practical next step
Write down two things you would want to be different in six months. That is the most useful thing to bring to a first session, whoever it is with. If you would rather start now than keep reading, online sessions are the quickest route.
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