Dr. Mary Mansour
Psychological Associate
Office Location: Pasadena and Teletherapy
Services Offered: Individual therapy, couples therapy, premarital therapy, family therapy
Ages: Children, Adolescents, Emerging Adults and Adults
Relationships & dating, relational trauma, family dynamics, identity & culture, grief & loss, college & graduate students, attachment & relationship patterns, life transitions
Maybe you know the pattern by now. You find yourself drawn to the same kinds of relationships, taking on the same role in your family, or promising yourself that next time you’ll respond differently, only to somehow end up in a familiar place. You may even understand where the pattern comes from and why it developed, yet still find yourself stuck in it.
Insight can be an important part of therapy, but understanding ourselves doesn’t always make change easy. Sometimes you can understand exactly why you keep doing something and still have a hard time doing anything differently. Part of our work is navigating what happens when you actually try to break the pattern such as what feels difficult, what pulls you back toward what’s familiar, and what helps you keep going.
Together, we’ll pay attention to the relationships that shaped you, the roles you learned to play, what you came to expect from other people, and the ways those experiences continue to show up in your life now. The relationship we build together is part of that work, too. Sometimes the patterns that show up in relationships outside of therapy find their way into the room, giving us an opportunity to notice, understand, and work through them together.
I particularly enjoy working with relationship and dating concerns, recurring interpersonal patterns, family dynamics, and questions of identity and culture. For many people, figuring out what you want is complicated by loyalty, responsibility, cultural expectations, or the version of yourself you learned your family needed you to be. Therapy gives us room to explore those tensions while also figuring out what it might look like to respond differently.
I bring warmth, curiosity, and honesty into the room, and I’ll be genuinely engaged in the work with you. I’ll support you through the hard parts while also asking questions, noticing patterns, and sometimes gently challenging you to look at something differently. I don’t expect you to recognize a pattern and suddenly know how to stop repeating it. I’ll be alongside you as you experiment with doing things differently, including the moments when it works, the moments when you fall back into what’s familiar, and everything in between.
Starting therapy can feel scary, especially when you’re not quite sure what to expect or where to begin. You don’t need to have the right words or have everything figured out before you get here. We can start wherever you are and take it from there together.
About Dr. Mary
Mary earned her Master's and Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Azusa Pacific University and her Bachelor's in Psychology from the University of California, Riverside. She is a Registered Psychological Associate (94029730) working under the supervision of Dr. Brett Veltman (PSY21684).
Mary has worked with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds across a variety of settings, including community mental health and university counseling centers. As a Syrian-American woman, she has a particular interest in working with Middle Eastern and North African clients and exploring the ways culture, family, relationships, and identity intersect.
Outside of the therapy room, Mary enjoys spending time with her cats, Suzie and Jacuzzi, running, hiking, cooking, making new music playlists, and trying new restaurants.