Marguerita Van Der Meer, ACA

Marguerita Van Der Meer is an ACA counsellor with 15 years' experience. She has worked across many areas including anxiety, depression, grief and relationship difficulties. Her background also spans social and cultural minority issues, adoption and foster care, and caregiving stress. She writes with a reflective, philosophical tone and invites people to explore deeper meaning in their lives.

Her approach is adaptable rather than rigid. She draws on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Narrative Therapy and mind-body ideas to help people notice what matters and take small steps toward it. Sessions usually focus on practical choices, simple skills and clearer personal values rather than jargon or long theory lessons.

Clients can expect a collaborative style. The counsellor listens for life patterns, family of origin influences and ways past experiences shape day-to-day reactions. Work may include discussing communication problems, codependency, commitment issues, infidelity, and managing anger or addictive behaviours.

Marguerita also supports people facing neurodiversity, intellectual disability, chronic illness, and attachment concerns. She brings attention to how those issues intersect with self-esteem, control, dissociation and coping with life changes. Her experience includes supporting LGBT people and those processing bereavement.

Sessions aim to be practical and paced to each person. The emphasis is on noticing values, trying new small steps, and using storytelling to reframe difficult memories. To begin, follow the site's booking steps and match with her via the questionnaire.

How therapeutic approaches work online and by phone

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people clarify their values and take small, meaningful steps toward them. It is useful for anxiety, depression and coping with life changes because it focuses on action rather than getting stuck in thoughts. Client-Centred Therapy centres the person in the room and relies on active listening, which helps people feel heard while they sort through difficult emotions and decisions.

Finding the right approach is a shared process. The counsellor will talk with the client about their goals and preferences and suggest which methods to try. Sessions can change over time as new priorities emerge, and choices are made together rather than imposed.

The therapist's biography does not list specific session formats, so please confirm current options before booking. Online work can make it easier to fit counselling into a busy week, reduce travel time and allow shorter check-ins when needed. Phone or video sessions can suit different practical needs - for example a phone call can be a shorter check-in when bandwidth or time is limited, while video can support face-to-face conversation without travel. Marguerita uses her clinical approaches to adapt exercises and storytelling techniques to the format chosen, helping clients apply tools in everyday life.