Maria Ali-Adib Pravda

Hi-- I'm Maria. I am a psychotherapeutic counsellor and trainee Transactional Analyst working with individual adults, couples, and groups.

My practice is built on a simple but important premise: that people make sense. However confusing or painful our patterns of behaviour might seem, they started as intelligent adaptations — ways of surviving difficult experiences and relationships. The trouble is that survival strategies don't always know when they're no longer needed, or when they've become harmful to us. They linger, shaping how we feel, how we relate, and how we move through the world — showing up as emotional withdrawal, self-criticism, compulsive behaviours, substance use, or recurring difficulties in relationships.

If any of that feels familiar, therapy may be able to help.

My work is to create the conditions for those patterns to be met with curiosity and compassion rather than judgement — and for something new to become possible. Many clients find that where therapy began as a response to a specific difficulty, it gradually opens into something wider: a clearer sense of self, more satisfying relationships, and a greater feeling of choice in how they live.

My approach is relational, trauma-informed, and depth-oriented. Conversation sits at the heart of the work, but I also pay attention to what can be harder to put into words — drawing on dreams, imagery, creativity, and the body as ways of accessing deeper layers of experience and supporting lasting change.

Therapy often begins in response to pain. But it can also become something more: a space for discovering connection, authenticity, meaning, and a renewed sense of aliveness. I seek to offer a thoughtful, collaborative relationship in which you can explore difficult experiences, come to know yourself more fully, and find greater freedom in how you live and relate.

Couples and Relationship Therapy:

If you're looking for help navigating relationship challenges-- here's what I know. Relationships can be hard, and each develops its own patterns — ways of communicating, of arguing, of pulling close or pulling away. Sometimes those patterns stop working. People come to relationship therapy for all kinds of reasons — persistent conflict, a growing sense of distance, a rupture that hasn't healed-- a feeling that you have stopped really seeing each other.

Whatever has brought you here, the relationship itself is what we work with — not to apportion blame, but to understand what is happening between you and create the conditions for something different. I aim to offer a space to understand what is happening between you, and to find your way forward, together, into something new.

Background and Qualifications:

Before becoming a therapist, I spent over twenty years working internationally in humanitarian and emergency response settings, alongside individuals and communities affected by conflict, displacement, and crisis. That experience continues to shape my understanding of resilience, adaptation, and the social, cultural, and relational contexts in which emotional difficulties emerge. I have a deep appreciation for the complexities of identity, belonging, and life between cultures.

I hold a Master's degree in Educational Psychology from University College London, and am completing advanced clinical training in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy at Metanoia Institute in London. I have undertaken specialist training in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, trauma-focused approaches, and relationship therapy.

I am a registered member of the UKCP, engage in regular clinical supervision, and am committed to ethical, reflective, and evidence-informed practice.