Maria Palej, BACP, NCPS

Maria Palej is a counsellor with six years of professional practice and additional experience in helping roles stretching back further. She works in the United Kingdom and speaks English and Polish. She aims to make the first steps into therapy simple and approachable for people feeling stuck or overwhelmed.

Maria often sees people coping with anxiety, stress and depression, and those moving on from abusive relationships or past trauma. She supports people facing relationship strains, intimacy difficulties, addiction concerns, grief, sleep or eating problems, and career stress. Jealousy is one of the relationship issues she lists among her focus areas.

Her working style is flexible and conversational. She draws on client-centred counselling to follow what matters most to the person in front of her. She also uses psychodynamic ideas when looking at patterns that repeat across relationships and life choices.

Maria includes mindfulness-based techniques to help with overwhelming feelings and Solution-Focused methods to set practical goals and notice small changes. Sessions are meant to be collaborative and paced to each person’s needs.

People contacting her can expect a straightforward first meeting where they talk about reasons for coming and ask questions about therapy. The process is intended to help people find clearer ways forward and develop tools to manage everyday challenges.

How Maria's approaches translate to online counselling

Client-Centred Therapy puts the person’s experience at the heart of sessions. The therapist listens without judgement and helps people name what matters to them, which can be useful for issues like relationship strain or stress. Mindfulness Therapy teaches simple breathing and grounding techniques to reduce reactivity and manage anxiety or overwhelming feelings.

Finding the right approach is part of the work together. The therapist will talk with the person about their needs, goals and preferences and choose methods that fit. That collaborative decision-making means approaches can shift as progress and priorities change.

Confirm the exact online session formats before booking, as they are not specified here. Online work can make it easier to fit therapy into a busy life, for example allowing sessions during a lunch break or avoiding travel time. It also supports using short check-ins, guided mindfulness practices and goal-setting tasks between sessions to keep momentum.