About Mary
Mary Koch is a licensed mental health counselor with eight years of clinical experience. She practices as an LMHC in Iowa and focuses on helping people who are stressed, anxious, grieving, or facing changes in their lives. Her manner is warm and nonjudgmental, and she aims to make a first step feel manageable.
In sessions she listens first and then offers simple reframes that let clients hear their own thoughts differently.
Background and approach
She uses practical approaches people can try between meetings, and she encourages noticing small positives when they appear. Clients are invited to express anger, sadness, confusion, or relief without feeling judged. Her background includes outpatient work with people facing substance use and dual diagnosis, counseling in school settings from elementary through college levels, and providing services in correctional facilities.
She has supported people working through trauma, depression, personality challenges, grief, and questions around sexual identity. Mary blends several therapy methods so sessions are tailored to each person. That can mean focusing on thoughts and behaviors one week, then on values and acceptance the next.
The goal is practical progress people can recognize in day-to-day life. She offers a mix of video, phone, live chat, and text-based sessions to fit different schedules. Appointments are scheduled around posted hours and can be adjusted when needed.
Getting started involves a short matching questionnaire and scheduling a first session.
Therapeutic approaches adapted for online care
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people name what matters to them and take small actions toward those values. It focuses on accepting difficult thoughts and moving forward with chosen goals, which can help with anxiety, depression, and coping with life changes.Attachment-Based Therapy looks at how early bonds affect current relationships and emotional patterns. Working on attachment themes can help people improve trust, reduce fear of abandonment, and change long-standing interaction patterns.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) focuses on identifying unhelpful thoughts and testing them with practical experiments. It is useful for anxiety, low mood, sleep problems, and changing behaviors that keep problems going.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. The therapist will collaborate with each person to decide which methods fit their goals, needs, and preferences. Sessions can mix approaches and shift focus as progress is made.
Online therapy offers flexibility through video calls, phone sessions, live chat, or text-based messaging. Video is useful for face-to-face conversation and noticing nonverbal cues. Phone sessions can be easier when bandwidth is limited or when someone prefers not to be on camera. Live chat and messaging allow shorter check-ins and ongoing reflection between appointments. These options make it easier to schedule care around school, work, or family commitments and to keep momentum between sessions.
Frequently asked questions
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Specialties and expertise
Top specialties
- Stress, Anxiety
- Trauma and abuse
- Sleeping disorders
Also works with
- Abandonment
- Addictions
- Anger management
- Attachment issues
- Avoidant personality
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Co-morbidity
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Emptiness
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- Fatherhood issues
- Fertility issues
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- HIV / AIDS
- Hoarding
- Hospice and end-of-life counseling
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- LGBT
- Life purpose
- Men's issues
- Midlife crisis
- Money and financial issues
- Mood disorders
- Multicultural concerns
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Post-traumatic stress
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Traumatic brain injury
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Experience
- 8 years
- Licensed
- Iowa, Florida
- Languages
- English