Meet Mara: Couples Therapist in Ontario Supporting Relationships, Life Transitions & Women’s Mental Health
Finding the right therapist can make a significant difference in how comfortable you feel opening up, exploring difficult emotions, and creating meaningful change. At Lovebird Couples Therapy Ontario, we believe therapy should feel compassionate, collaborative, and tailored to the person or relationship sitting in front of us.
We're excited to introduce Mara Behan, B.A. (Hons), B.Ed., M.A., Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), a member of the Lovebird Couples Therapy Ontario team.
With more than 20 years of experience working in education and social services, Mara brings extensive experience supporting individuals through crises, life transitions, relationship challenges, and periods of significant change.
Whether you're looking for couples therapy in Ontario, support during pregnancy or postpartum, help navigating perimenopause or menopause, or individual therapy for anxiety and relationship concerns, Mara offers a warm and compassionate space to explore what's happening and identify a path forward.
Who Is Mara Behan?
Mara is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with a background in education and social services. She has spent more than two decades supporting individuals through challenging life circumstances and helping them navigate change.
Her approach to therapy is described as compassionate, approachable, and gently honest, while leaving room for both meaningful healing and humor.
Her specialized areas include relationship concerns, communication difficulties, anxiety, attachment and relational trauma, parenting, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, menopause, neurodiversity, and life transitions such as divorce, career changes, and changing family dynamics.
Mara's Approach to Couples Therapy
Relationships can become difficult for many reasons. Sometimes couples are caught in recurring arguments. Other times, partners feel emotionally disconnected, misunderstood, or overwhelmed by the demands of work, parenting, family, or major life transitions.
Mara uses Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) as part of her work with couples.EFT focuses on helping partners understand the emotional patterns that develop between them rather than simply determining who is right or wrong.
For example, a couple might find themselves caught in a pattern where: One partner reaches for connection → the other feels overwhelmed and pulls away → the first partner pursues harder → the second partner withdraws further.
Over time, both partners can begin to feel lonely, rejected, frustrated, or misunderstood.
Rather than viewing one person as the problem, couples therapy can help partners recognize the cycle they're both caught in and develop new ways of responding to one another.
At Lovebird Couples Therapy Ontario, EFT is one of the approaches used to help couples move toward greater emotional safety, connection, communication, and understanding.
Supporting Women Through Pregnancy, Postpartum, Perimenopause & Menopause
One of Mara's clinical areas of focus is supporting women through significant reproductive and hormonal life transitions, including:
Pregnancy
Pregnancy can bring excitement and anticipation, but it can also introduce significant emotional, physical, and relationship changes.
Couples may experience changes in:
Communication
Intimacy
Division of responsibilities
Expectations about parenthood
Emotional needs
Identity
Family dynamics
Therapy can provide a space to explore these changes and strengthen the relationship before or during the transition to parenthood.
Postpartum
The postpartum period can bring enormous changes to a person's identity, relationship, routines, sleep, responsibilities, and emotional wellbeing.
Couples may find themselves asking: "How did we go from feeling like partners to feeling like roommates?"
or: "Why are we fighting about everything?"
Therapy can help couples slow down, understand the emotional needs underneath conflict, and rebuild teamwork and connection.
Perimenopause & Menopause
Perimenopause and menopause can also represent significant life transitions.
Changes in sleep, mood, energy, sexuality, identity, and physical wellbeing can affect both the individual and their relationship.
Mara supports clients navigating these transitions while also helping couples understand how major changes can influence their relationship dynamic.
Anxiety & Relationship Concerns
Mara also works with individuals experiencing anxiety and relationship concerns.
Anxiety can affect relationships in many ways, including:
Overthinking
Reassurance-seeking
Difficulty communicating needs
Fear of conflict
Difficulty setting boundaries
Feeling overwhelmed
Relationship uncertainty
Difficulty trusting yourself
Becoming stuck in repetitive thought patterns
Therapy can provide an opportunity to slow these patterns down and better understand what is happening emotionally, cognitively, and relationally.
Supporting Parents, Families & Neurodivergent Relationships
Mara brings personal and professional experience to her work with families and parents.
As a parent of three, including experience navigating neurodiversity, allergies, and parenting teenagers, she brings grounded, real-life understanding to the complexities of family life.
She works with clients navigating:
Parenting challenges
Neurodiversity
Communication difficulties
Family dynamics
Co-parenting
Blended families
Life transitions
Relationship strain
Family life rarely follows a perfect script. Therapy can provide a space to work through the realities of parenting and relationships without judgment.
What Therapeutic Approaches Does Mara Use?
Mara takes an integrative approach and tailors therapy to each client's individual needs.
Her therapeutic approaches include:
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
EFT helps couples understand their emotional connection and the patterns that contribute to conflict or disconnection.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT can help clients identify connections between thoughts, emotions, and behaviours and develop healthier ways of responding to challenges.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)-Informed Approaches
IFS-informed therapy can help individuals explore different internal parts of themselves with greater curiosity and compassion.
Somatic Approaches
Somatic approaches incorporate awareness of the body's responses and can help clients develop greater awareness of how stress and emotions show up physically.
Mara combines these approaches based on the individual's or couple's needs rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach.
Who Does Mara Work With?
Mara works with couples, individuals, and adolescents aged 16 and older.
Her areas of focus include:
She also supports people navigating a wide range of relationship and family structures.
An Inclusive & Affirming Therapy Space
Mara is committed to creating an inclusive, affirming, and culturally responsive therapeutic environment.
She welcomes and supports:
LGBTQ+ and queer individuals and couples
Racialized and BIPOC communities
Interracial and intercultural relationships
Interfaith couples and families
Jewish individuals and couples
Neurodivergent individuals and couples
Disabled individuals
Single parents
Co-parenting families
Blended families
Everyone deserves to feel respected, understood, and safe enough to bring their full experience into therapy.
What Can You Expect From Working With Mara?
Mara's style is warm, approachable, compassionate, and gently honest.
Therapy with Mara isn't about having all the answers from the beginning.
Instead, the process may involve slowing down to understand:
What's happening?
Why does this keep happening?
What do I need?
What does my partner need?
What patterns are keeping us stuck?
What would meaningful change look like?
Whether you're coming to therapy individually or as a couple, Mara's goal is to create a space where you can explore these questions without judgment.
A Little About Mara Outside of the Therapy Room
Therapy is serious work, but Mara believes there's room for joy and humor, too.
Outside of work, Mara enjoys spending time with her family and her rescue dog, Oreo, as well as playing games, hiking, and cooking together.
And yes, Oreo makes an appearance on Mara's therapist profile! Click here to see Oreo (and Mara)!
Virtual Couples & Individual Therapy With Mara Across Ontario
Mara provides virtual therapy, making it possible to access support from the comfort of your own home.
Virtual therapy can be particularly helpful for:
Busy parents
Couples with different schedules
People living outside major urban centres
Couples who prefer therapy from home
Individuals navigating pregnancy or postpartum
People managing demanding work or family responsibilities
You don't need to add another commute to your already busy schedule to prioritize your relationship or mental wellbeing.
How to Book Therapy With Mara
If you're looking for a couples therapist in Ontario, individual therapist, or therapist to support you through a major life transition, Mara may be a good fit.
She offers a complimentary consultation call so you can ask questions, share a little about what you're looking for, and determine whether her approach feels right for you.
Mara is currently accepting clients!
Meet Mara at Lovebird Couples Therapy Ontario
At Lovebird Couples Therapy Ontario, our goal is to help individuals and couples build healthier, more fulfilling relationships through compassionate, evidence-informed therapy.
Whether you're navigating relationship conflict, parenting stress, anxiety, pregnancy, postpartum changes, perimenopause, menopause, neurodiversity, or another major life transition, you don't have to navigate it alone.
Mara's approach is warm, collaborative, practical, and grounded in the belief that meaningful change is possible.
If you're ready to take the first step, book a complimentary consultation to see whether Mara is the right therapist for you.