Mary Shiels, BACP

Mary Shiels is a counsellor, trainer, and TEDx speaker who brings focused support to people navigating stress, anxiety, trauma, grief, depression, and related concerns. She is a BACP registered professional - BACP stands for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy - and has three years of direct clinical experience working with individuals across the gender and sexuality spectrum.

Mary offers affirming therapy for people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, asexual, intersex, and anyone with gender, sex, or relationship diversity. She also provides services for those engaged in consensual non-normative sexualities and offers support for sex workers. In addition, she serves as one of Ireland's Ambassadors for Training in Consensual Approaches to Sexual Violence for both teenagers and adults.

Her practice includes work with attachment issues, body image, caregiver stress, communication and control problems, divorce and separation, forgiveness, guilt and shame, isolation and loneliness, life purpose, mood disorders, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress, self-love, and social anxiety. Mary specialises in trauma-led therapy and uses approaches such as the Clearing Method, Emotional Mastery techniques to strengthen body-mind connection, and targeted anxiety work to reduce panic and chronic worry.

She also uses solution-focused brief therapy and integrates care for bereavement, childhood and adult sexual abuse, suicide prevention training, neurodiversity-related needs (including ADHD, ADD, ASD, and fetal alcohol syndrome), domestic abuse and coercive control, mindfulness, resilience building, and menopause-related issues. Mary welcomes clients in the United Kingdom and internationally, working to help people understand their experience and find practical, compassionate ways forward.

Therapeutic Approaches for Effective Online Support

Mary draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Attachment-Based Therapy to guide her online work. ACT helps people notice and accept difficult thoughts and feelings while identifying personal values and taking steps toward a meaningful life - it is often used for anxiety, depression, and persistent worry. Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on relationship patterns formed early in life and explores how these patterns affect current relationships and emotional responses - it is useful for attachment issues, relationship difficulties, and healing from relational trauma.

Finding the right approach is part of the therapeutic process. Mary works collaboratively with each client and with registered professionals as needed to identify which methods best match a client's goals, preferences, and the specific difficulties they bring to therapy. She adapts techniques over time so the work remains relevant and practical.

Online therapy with Mary is available by video call, phone, live chat, or text-based messaging, offering flexibility for different schedules and needs. These options make ongoing work more accessible for people managing busy lives, caregiving responsibilities, or geographical constraints, while allowing therapists to sustain steady, focused support across sessions.