About Mary
Mary Cowen is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 26 years of experience. She has practiced in Texas, Oklahoma, and now North Carolina. She works with people facing grief, anxiety, depression, relationship trouble, trauma, and many life changes.
Over the years Mary has worked in community health, in-home care, schools, inpatient settings, hospitals, and hospice. That range means she has experience with crisis support, end-of-life concerns, and long-term coping needs.
Background and approach
She also has experience addressing eating issues, addiction, caregiver stress, and medical-related emotional challenges. Her style is warm and interactive. She treats people with respect and compassion and adapts her approach to each person.
Sessions focus on clear steps clients can try between meetings and on building skills that reduce distress. Mary uses several practical approaches in sessions. She draws on client-centered therapy to follow each person’s goals, cognitive behavioral techniques to spot unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, and mindfulness strategies to reduce reactivity.
She also uses motivational interviewing to support change and Imago ideas for relationship work. People come to her for common concerns like stress, parenting strain, body image, chronic illness, and career challenges. She also helps with phobias and intimacy-related issues.
Mary accepts international clients and conducts sessions in English, using video, phone, chat, or text depending on what fits best. If someone is unsure where to start, Mary supports a first step that feels manageable. She encourages gradual progress and works alongside each person to set realistic goals and build confidence.
Approaches that guide online sessions
Client-centered therapy focuses on listening and following each person’s goals. The therapist helps clients name what matters to them and builds sessions around those priorities. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, breaks down how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors interact and teaches practical exercises to change unhelpful patterns. This approach is useful for anxiety, depression, and many stress-related problems. Dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, emphasizes emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and improved communication skills. It can help when intense emotions or relationship conflicts get in the way of daily life.Choosing the right approach is collaborative. The therapist will talk with the client about goals, try methods that fit their needs, and adjust as progress is made. That shared process helps identify which tools and techniques feel most helpful over time.
Online therapy offers flexible ways to connect. Video calls let people use visual cues and longer conversation. Phone sessions are a good option when bandwidth is limited or a shorter check-in is needed. Live chat and text messaging work well for brief updates, tools between sessions, or people who prefer writing to speaking. These options make it easier to fit therapy into work, caregiving, or travel schedules while keeping treatment consistent.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
- Grief
- Eating disorders
- Self esteem
Also listed
- ADHD
- Adoption and foster care
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Anger management
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Chronic pain, illness, and disability
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Compassion fatigue
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Eating and food-related issues
- Family conflicts
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Guilt and shame
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Intimacy-related issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Phobias
- Relationship issues
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 26 years
- Licensed
- North Carolina
- Languages
- English
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