Welcome to Maria Kontzamanis
Social Work & Psychotherapy Services
Meet Maria - A Different Approach to Therapy
You might be holding everything together on the outside — but inside, it feels like too much or not enough at all.
I help people build the capacity to stay with themselves, especially in moments that feel overwhelming, confusing, or hard to make sense of.
Many of the people I work with are insightful and self-aware — they understand their patterns, but still feel stuck in them.
Therapy with me focuses on slowing things down and working with your experience as it happens in real time. This includes noticing thoughts, emotions, and how your body responds under stress.
Rather than pushing for quick solutions, we focus on building your capacity to tolerate and stay with difficult internal experiences. From there, meaningful change becomes possible.
How I work
My approach is relational, somatic, and trauma-informed.
This means we don’t just talk about your experiences — we slow things down and notice how they are showing up in real time.
Together, we begin to:
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Track what’s happening in your body and nervous system
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Notice different parts of you as they emerge (even the ones that feel contradictory)
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Build tolerance for difficult emotions rather than pushing them away
We don’t rush into trauma processing.
We build the capacity to stay first.
What this work supports
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Feel overwhelmed, anxious, or emotionally flooded
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Feel disconnected, numb, or “not fully here”
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Find yourself repeating patterns you understand but can’t shift
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Are high-functioning on the outside but struggling internally
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Are tired of just coping and want something deeper
Integration of Body + Mind
With a background in both psychotherapy and yoga, I naturally integrate awareness of breath, body, and nervous system into sessions.
This isn’t about doing yoga in therapy — it’s about learning how to notice, tolerate, and stay with your internal experience in a more grounded way.
I am not a silent observer in the room.
I am present, engaged, and attuned to what is happening between us.
Therapy is not something that is done to you — it is something we build together.
You don’t need to have the right words.
You don’t need to have it all figured out.
You just need a place to begin.
Location & Contact
Maria is located in the east-end of Ottawa
Sessions are offered both virtually and in person.
