GROWTH AND LEARNING, PSYCHOTHERAPY, RESTORATIVE PARENTING
MSW, LCSW (Registered Clinical Supervisor)
Meet Mar (she/her)
Hello! I am a Licensed Psychotherapist, dedicated to intergenerational healing. I received my MSW in 2007 and began my clinical practice partnering with interpreters to provide trauma counseling for children, teens, adults and families with extensive, compound trauma due to historical trauma, as survivors of war, forced migration and ongoing systemic resettlement stressors.
Together with my colleague and partner, Traci Harrod, we co-developed Healing Encounters© in 2010 as a principle based model that serves to deepen our understanding of encounters that are healing through an Ethnomutual and Equitable Triad Lens, where healing encounters occur at the intersections of Linguistically Appropriate, Culturally Responsive and Trauma Informed Care. In addition to psychotherapy, I remain committed to defining quality standards through an equitable lens and centering culturally and linguistically diverse communities of the global majority. I am rooted in the belief that we can only be trauma informed to the extent that we are linguistically sustaining and culturally affirming.
I am trained in EMDR, Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), Somatic Experiencing®, PolyVagal Theory, and Level II trained in Natural Lifemanship®. I integrate and adapt each of these models and theories through an Ethnomutual and Equitable Triad Lens, to ensure we are defining trauma informed care as trauma informed for all. I am anchored by the core principle that healing occurs in the context of connected relationships that restore trust- through cumulative somatic encounters of experiencing dignity and choice.
I approach healing through both a systemic and attachment lens that is rooted in somatic embodiment. This understanding is interconnected with my journey of motherhood and inner child healing, which has served to kindle my commitment and passion for attachment work as essential for intergenerational healing.
I bring an authentic presence, empathy, attunement, and non-judgmental approach to our partnership. Within your body is an internal wisdom and knowing, that often has been quieted beneath the layers, yet still remains. I will be there to support you as you sense into your internal wisdom.
Through these experiences, we will seek reverent curiosity (Rowen White) and compassion regarding how the body might be responding to stress in the present moment, nurture what is needed, and then create new pathways for experiencing connection. I look forward to supporting you as you deepen internal pathways for meaningful, sustaining, long lasting healing in your life through somatic integration of mind, body and spirit.
A lifelong passion for horses, the path that led me to offer Trauma Informed Equine Assisted Services, can be traced back to my early childhood and a relationship with a very special Sorrel, Quarter Horse gelding born in 1983. In many ways, walking alongside you and your equine partner, feels full circle. It is both where I began and thankfully, also, an unending journey of unlearning and learning. I am humbled and honored to journey alongside both equines and humans as we deepen our internal pathways for healing, through connection and repair.
I share life’s journey together with my husband, our two precious daughters, and our beloved Newfoundland and Border Collie. We enjoy the simple beauties and rhythms of daily life, mutual growth and learning, and repair alongside each other. Together we are seeking to deepen our understanding of gratitude and reciprocity in caring for Nature and the many beings whom we share land and sea.
In-person and remote options
Yarrow is offered at several Quintas where the mountains meet the sea in Portugal. We also can provide virtual follow up sessions, including teletherapy, in combination with in-person sessions, workshops, or retreats.