Maria Mars

Maria Mars is a HCPC registered practitioner with 27 years of experience in psychological care. She works with people who are struggling with stress, anxiety, depression and anger. Maria aims to create a calm, practical space where people can talk about what matters to them and begin to make changes.

She has worked across public, voluntary and private settings. That breadth of experience means she has supported people through trauma, parenting challenges, bereavement and identity concerns. Maria also helps with sleep problems, mood disorders and attention differences such as ADHD.

Her approach draws on several well known methods including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Attachment-Based Therapy. She uses ideas from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and client-centred work as needed. Sessions focus on clear goals, skills that can be practised between meetings, and making sense of difficult patterns.

Maria aims to build a warm, trusting working relationship. She will listen, help set achievable goals and offer tools to cope with strong emotions. The work is collaborative and paced to the person’s needs.

People who contact her can expect practical strategies alongside time to talk through painful experiences. She supports those dealing with family of origin issues, foster and adoption concerns, communication problems and the stresses that come with caregiving and life change.

How therapeutic approaches translate to online work

Maria commonly uses Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in her practice. CBT focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing them with practical experiments, which can help with anxiety, low mood and sleep problems. ACT emphasises values and small committed actions, helping people cope with difficult feelings while moving towards what matters to them.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will discuss options and decide together which methods suit the person's goals and preferences. This collaborative process helps tailor sessions to the issues being brought to therapy.

Session formats are not specified in the biography, so please confirm current session options before booking. Online therapy can make it easier to fit meetings into a busy life, reduce travel time and allow shorter check-ins at convenient moments. It can also allow work that focuses on practical skills and between-session tasks, so techniques learned in sessions can be practiced in day-to-day life.