I specialize in providing therapy for women navigating the delicate journey of motherhood across the lifespan. I am passionate about maternal mental health and parenting. I have experience working with women who have a history of depression and anxiety, including postpartum depression, along with mothers who have children with chronic illnesses. I find it to be imperative that we, as women, establish ways to fill up our cups so we can nurture those around us. Together we can persevere through the challenges and celebrate the triumphs of motherhood.

I have been a Licensed Marriage and Family Counselor for over 25 years and truly enjoy serving others by helping them sort through their challenges and come up with a plan on how to move forward and live with joy.  My business Joy Filled Life Counseling offers counseling services to individual adults for a variety of issues. Most of my clients seek me out because of a desire to work with a counselor that brings a Catholic Christian worldview to the table and want to weave their spiritual lives into the sessions. 

Some of the areas in which I can help are:

Coping Strategies:  Handling a recent crisis situation, overcoming negative thinking, finding healthy ways to manage life and emotions, reducing anxiety 

Grief and loss:  Death of a loved one, infertility and other reproductive issues, ending of a relationship, or coping with an illness

Life Transitions:  Such as a new baby, moving, job loss, empty nest, retirement

Relationship issues:  Improving communication, boundaries, understanding common relationship patterns and challenges, working through infidelity and trust issues, relationship enrichment

Stress management:  Work/life balance, job stress, relationship or family stress

I utilize counseling techniques from many different styles such as Solutions Focused Counseling, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing.   I am educated and very interested in Theology of the Body and work to bring this perspective into sessions as well.  

Clients regularly comment on my warmth, supportive nature and the vast array of resources I draw upon, while helping them. Having provided services in a variety of settings, Employee Assistance Programs, Mental Health Clinics, schools and group homes, I have incorporated the best of counseling techniques from many different therapy styles and am skilled in providing services in person and virtually by video or telephone.

Researcher and professor at the University of Navarra (Spain), with several degrees in Education and Psychology.  She also holds a PhD in Medicine in the area of Public Health and Epidemiology. For almost ten years, she worked as a teacher in schools, but currently combines her research work with psychotherapeutic practice. She co-directs a private psychotherapy clinic located in Pamplona (Spain). 

She is author of more than 15 research articles, including an article evaluating the protective role of religiosity and sexual attitudes in early sexual initiation. In addition, she has a large number of oral and poster presentations in scientific congresses. Maria specializes in quantitative research methods, e.g., multivariate analysis with longitudinal and cross-sectional data. Her research interests include topics such as childhood and adolescence, marriage and family, and couple therapy and the integration between affectivity and sexuality. Her research focuses specifically on three areas:

• The study of adolescent lifestyles and their impact on their affectivity and sexuality. 

• The evaluation of psychotherapeutic and psychoeducational processes.

• The processes of affective maturation in adults to promote the integration between cognition and emotion through applications that will be able to apply in psychotherapeutic or educational settings.

Researcher and Assistant Professor at the Universidad de Navarra (Spain), Accredited Marriage and family therapist in Spain, President of the Spanish Society for Development and Research in Family Therapy. Autor of more than 20 research articles, dozens of brief paper and poster presentations in scientific congresses, co-author of 7 book chapters, as well as the editor and coordinator of a book with 8 international co-authors. I am the supervisor of 7 doctoral dissertations, as well as ad-hoc reviewer for the Journal of Marriage and Family, Family Process or Journal of Contemporary Family Therapy, among others. Member of the editorial board of Integratus. My principal research focused around couple relationships and processes of emotional development. From 2012 to 2018 I was the director of a general psychological health clinic which specializes in couple therapy (located in Spain) for six years, at the Diocese of Lugo (Spain), and currently I am the director of a private psychotherapy clinic located in Pamplona (Spain). Advisor of the Spanish National Conference of Bishops for the Marriage and Family Pastoral Care centers.

I am a UK-based and trained Accredited Psychotherapist and Specialist Addictions Interventionist and Consultant, with over 30 years of professional experience in working with those who present and suffer greatly with complex mental health experiences, offending, addiction, compulsive and disordered attachment experiences.

I work in both the UK and Italy. I desire to embrace the Catholic tradition and Magisterial teaching on the uniqueness and unlimited value of the person. I set out to do this with the starting point of love and compassion without reservation or fear, asking and seeking to be guided by Christ in this respect.

I draw from my training in Psychology, Health Science and Existential Psychology, Addiction Science and Addiction Psychology, Humanistic Theory and Existential Psychology & Psychotherapy, and yet seek to re-explore these positions from within the Metaphysical, Personalism and Philosophical teachings of Saint John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla.

I hold very much to the scriptural attestation that we are all created in the likeness and image of God and each, as such, are first called to value and love ourselves and each other, because we are first loved by God and created by and through Him to give and receive love. This may be in stark contrast to the deeply held but flawed ideas we may hold about ourselves and others that we are unworthy or incapable of giving or receiving love. 

In my work, most of the brokenness and the 'wounded-ness' I witness has been borne from broken attachments, broken families, broken communities and cultures and the often-time abuse, dysfunction and confusion that permeates therein. It is true to say that a preponderance is found in spiritual and physical deprivation, poverty and lack, but it is also seen in poverty of spirit from within very provided for groups, where materialism is placed as if an 'IDOL', as a relied-upon and hoped-for source of wholeness and healing in its own right, which inevitably fails and disappoints leaving in its wake a deeper and greater aching an amplified emptiness and an insatiable hunger which is never satisfied.

My work tries to get at the entire picture of the 'lived-in' experience and the 'lived-out of' experience, as well as all the known limitations and privations, which together can provide an awareness of the potential and probability of marked and realistic change, at a pace and a tone which is relevant to each individual encounter.

My first degree is a Batchelor of Science (Honours) degree in Psychology & Health Science accredited by the British Psychological Society, and confers eligibility towards the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership of the British Psychological Society, (GMBPsS) 188702. I hold two subsequent Postgraduate (PG) Qualifications. One is a (PG) Certificate in Existential Psychology & Existential Psychotherapy and a Postgraduate (PG) Diploma in Advanced Addiction Psychology & Addiction Counselling.  I have special interests as an affiliate member of the British Psychological Societies Faculty of Addiction, and with its Faculty of Leadership & Management. I am an Accredited Psychotherapist with the British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP). A member of the Scientific Study of Addiction (SSA); A member of the Society for Existential Analysis (SEA); An Affiliate & Registered Clinical Member of SMMGP, (Substance Misuse Management in General Practice) in the UK, (A Registration Body & Network for Addiction Professionals).

My main interests in Psychotherapy, Counselling and Psychology lie within the domains of Addiction, Joint Protocol Driven, Symptomatic Detox (Community or Home Based); Process Addictions, Trauma, Complex Child Abuse and the sequelae that extend into adulthood, Recovery, Allied Recovery Communities, Obsessive & Intrusive Thoughts, Scrupolosity, Spiritual Abuse, Institutional Abuse & Dysfunction.

I consistently maintain insurance in place at all times, as follows:

PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY & MALPRACTICE

Policy Cover for:

Breach of Professional Duty; Malpractice; Professional Indemnity; Good Samaritan Acts and First Aid.

Public Liability.

Products Liability.

Retrospective Cover.

Unlimited cover for previously insured work performed as per extension

Conditions

Psychology to include Health Science
Cover extended to include Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy, Counselling and Consultancy.

Limit of Indemnity

Professional Liability: £6,000,000

Public Liability: £6,000,000

Products Liability: £6,000,000

I am an author of a personal memoir to be published in 2023 or early 2024 by Austin Macauley chronicling my personal journey through and beyond adversity and trauma.

I am Group Chief Executive of Chrysalis Group Services and the founder of Chrysalis Supported Association Ltd, Joint Founder of OPOKA, a Polish Bi-Lingual Specialist Domestic Abuse Service in the UK, and a lead Consultant for Chrysalis Private Treatment Services in Italy. We offer a range of specialist non-profit and for-profit services, and develop businesses that are specifically designed to provide solutions that address and look to resolve phenomena for those underserved in society and who are struggling to gain or maintain a meaningful foothold in society.

As well as founding new businesses and services, I also consult to other treatment facilities and professionals, specifically those attending to those who are underserved and disadvantaged, as well as those who may be defined as 'privileged' or identified as 'high-wealth individuals', and who seek a solution that attends to complex substance abuse and mental health issues. I carry this out in the UK and in Italy.

I have a number of other trainings I have taken and have offered training in the following:

• Motivational Interviewing
• Solution Focused Brief Therapy
• Psychotropic Substances Pharmacology, Use, Management & Withdrawls
• Depression & Anxiety (medical and existential views and approaches)
• Symptomatic Detox
• Detoxification Protocols
• Co-Dependency
• Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families
• Inner Child Therapy
• Residential Addiction Treatment Protocols, Policy, Procedure & Staff Training (Clinical, Tertiary & Administrative)
• Community Based Addiction Treatment Protocols & Staff Training (Clinical, Tertiary & Administrative)
• Supervision & Contracting
• Suicide Awareness and Prevention
• Harm Minimisation
• Living with Hepatitis C
• Living with HIV
• Co-Morbidity & Addiction
• Dual Diagnosis
• Prescribing Substitute Treatment Protocols (training for General Practitioners, Psychiatrists and Nurse Practitioners)
• Clinical Assessment of Complex Addiction & Dependency
• Forensic Reporting
• Clinical Treatment formulation, understanding and review (how do we know what we’re doing is treating what it claims to be treating and how do we know it works?)

This list is limited and aims only to give a general idea of my approach, capacity and experience, and does not include current work or Continual Professional Development, which is something I am continually engaged with.

BA in Psychology in 1985; Bachelor of Social Work degree in 1991, followed by over 9 years of practice in child protection, adult long-term care services, and public housing programs.  In 1998 achieved an M.Ed. in Counselling.  Since obtaining the MSW in 2002, I have worked in a variety of hospital and community-based programs (community mental health for children youth & families; inpatient mental health for adults; physical rehabilitation for children and adults, adolescent medicine, lifestyle program for obesity, central intake for child & youth mental health and addictions; traumatic stress services for adults with Complex PTSD; pediatric and neonatal intensive care, a government EAP program, adult mental health and addictions services, and private practice).  I've worked in every Atlantic province of Canada.

Now settled in St.John's, Newfoundland, with a part-time private practice for adults.  I am a certified EMDR therapist, a Catholic therapist, and an IFS (Internal Family Systems) Informed Therapist.   I am a member of the Newfoundland & Labrador College of Social Workers and the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers (Telepractice only for NS).  I also enjoy membership in the ISSTD -International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation.