Maria Ali-Adib Pravda

Maria Ali-Adib Pravda is a trainee psychotherapist completing a Masters degree in relational Transactional Analysis, an accessible and versatile way of working with clients which is rooted in Psychodynamic and Humanistic psychotherapy. She is a student member of UKCP. She works within the low-cost counselling service in Clapham.

Maria works on the basis that, in the midst of our struggles, we are each of us fundamentally ‘OK’ and have the capacity to decide what we want for our lives. Her approach is anchored in partnership, curiosity and respect and places the relationship between client and herself at the very heart of the work they do together. In this context, she works collaboratively with her client to explore, confront, and understand the client’s patterns of behaviour, thought and feeling– and if they choose, to change them. Ultimately, she aims for therapy to enable her clients to grow in awareness and autonomy, and to live full and authentic lives. While grounded in TA principles, Maria offers a creative and integrative approach to therapy, applying techniques and tools from diverse modalities in attunement with her client and their needs as these evolve. As a relational practitioner, she attends closely to the dynamics between therapist and client, and has a particular interest in Gestalt techniques and in Jungian approaches to accessing the unconscious, including active imagination, dream work and the use of metaphor and play.

As a former humanitarian worker, Maria has worked cross-culturally with people experiencing trauma loss, and grief, and brings this background to bear in her therapeutic practice. She has a special interest in personality disorders and addiction.