About Mary
Mary Shands is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) practicing in Texas with 12 years of clinical experience. She brings calm, focused listening and a warm, energetic manner to sessions. Mary has worked in schools, substance use treatment, veteran services, sexual offender programs, and insurance settings.
She helps people facing anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship strain, parenting struggles, and addiction concerns. Mary has supported people through grief, intimacy concerns, eating and sleeping problems, and major life changes.
How Mary works
She also addresses issues like abandonment, adoption and foster-related separation, codependency, and first responder stress. Her background includes work across a wide age range and varied settings, which influences how she frames goals and strategies. In session she uses practical approaches such as cognitive behavioral techniques and client-centered conversation to clarify patterns and build new skills.
Mary also draws on attachment-based ideas to look at how close relationships shape emotional reactions. She favors plain language and short-term tools that people can try between appointments. People who choose Mary often want straightforward, interactive sessions.
She listens, asks focused questions, and offers exercises to practice outside of sessions. Her style blends input and reflection so clients leave with specific next steps. Mary provides online care through video, phone, live chat, and messaging.
She welcomes people who prefer remote options and works with individuals who want help managing stress, improving relationships, or coping after trauma.
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
- 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
Training and background
| Register | LPC |
|---|---|
| Years in practice | 12 |
| Languages | English |
| Session format | Online: video, phone, live chat or messaging |
| Country | Texas |
Memberships and registers are shown as supplied; they are not licences, and this directory does not verify them.
Online support options
Approach, Connection, and Online Care
Mary often uses client-centered therapy, which centers the conversation on the person's concerns and priorities and helps them shape goals at their own pace. This approach is helpful when someone needs supportive listening and guidance to figure out next steps.She also uses cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to identify unhelpful thought and behavior patterns and to teach practical tools for changing them. CBT is useful for anxiety, depression, and habits related to sleep, eating, and mood management.
Attachment-based ideas are used to notice how close relationships affect emotions and reactions. That perspective can help with relationship stress, intimacy concerns, and patterns that repeat across relationships.
Deciding which approach to use is collaborative. Mary will work with each person to match methods to their goals, symptoms, and preferences. She often blends approaches and adjusts the plan as progress is made.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat, or messaging to provide flexible access. Video calls allow face-to-face conversation when bandwidth permits, phone sessions can suit lower-bandwidth situations or shorter check-ins, and chat or messaging supports brief check-ins or ongoing contact between appointments. These options make it easier to fit therapy around work, caregiving, or travel and let people choose how they prefer to communicate.
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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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