Maria Ali-Adib Pravda
About Me
Maria is a psychotherapeutic counsellor and trainee Transactional Analyst working with adult individuals, couples and groups.
Her work begins from the understanding that people make sense. At the heart of her approach is an appreciation of how people adapt to difficult experiences and relationships, and how strategies that once helped us survive can continue to shape our lives long after they are no longer needed. These may show up as patterns of emotional withdrawal, self-criticism, substance use, compulsive behaviours, or difficulties in relationships.
Maria is interested in what becomes possible for us when longstanding patterns are understood with curiosity and compassion rather than judgement. Her approach is relational, trauma-informed, and depth-oriented. While conversation remains central, she pays particular attention to unconscious processes and the ways experience is communicated beyond words. Therapy may draw on dreams, imagery, metaphor, creativity, play, and bodily awareness as routes into deeper understanding and psychological change.
Although therapy often begins in response to pain or difficulty, it can also become a space for discovering connection, authenticity, meaning, and aliveness. Maria offers a warm and collaborative therapeutic relationship in which clients can explore difficult experiences, deepen self-understanding, and develop greater freedom in how they live and relate.
Qualifications & Experience
Maria holds a Master's degree in Educational Psychology from University College, London and is completing advanced clinical training in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy at the Metanoia Institute, London.
Alongside her core psychotherapy training, she has undertaken specialist training in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), trauma-focused approaches, and couples therapy. She has worked extensively with clients experiencing complex trauma, emotional dysregulation, personality-related difficulties, anxiety, depression, grief, addiction, and relationship challenges.
Before becoming a therapist, Maria spent more than twenty years working internationally in humanitarian and emergency response settings, supporting individuals and communities affected by conflict, displacement, crisis, and significant life transitions. This experience continues to inform her understanding of resilience, adaptation, and the wider social, cultural, and relational contexts in which emotional difficulties emerge.
It has also given her an appreciation of the complexities of identity, belonging, migration, and life between cultures, including the experience of feeling caught between different worlds, communities, languages, or ways of being.
Maria engages in regular clinical supervision and ongoing professional development and is committed to providing ethical, reflective, and evidence-informed practice. She is a member of the BACP and adheres to their code of ethics.
Areas of Specialism
Complex and developmental trauma
Attachment difficulties and relationship patterns
Emotional dysregulation and intense emotional states
Borderline personality disorder (BPD/EUPD) and related personality patterns
Addiction, substance use, alcohol misuse, and compulsive patterns
Shame, self-worth, and sense of self
ADHD and neurodivergence
Belonging, cultural identity, and life between cultures
Fertility challenges, miscarriage, and reproductive journeys
Grief, loss, and life transitions
Couples and relationship therapy
Client Group
Adult individuals, couples and groups.
She welcomes clients from diverse cultural, ethnic, religious, and relationship backgrounds, including monogamous, polyamorous, and non-monogamous relationships.
Therapy Mode
Sessions are available online or in person and are usually held at a regular weekly time. Therapy may be open-ended, allowing space for deeper exploration, or focused on a particular issue or goal over an agreed period of time.
Individual sessions are 50 minutes. Sessions for couples and multi-partner relationships are 75 minutes.
Contact Maria
+44 7869 862929
