About Maureen
I'm on this journey with you, and believe that personal growth is a life-long process. For this reason, I engage in my own therapy and believe that it is important as a therapist to remember what it's like to be a client. It's hard to open up to someone you don't know and it takes time to build trust. My goal in sharing some of my own story is to normalize seeking help, and hopefully make it a little easier for you to share your story with me.
Experience and Education
From a young age, I knew that I wanted to be able to help people, I just wasn’t sure what that would look like. I struggled for many years, starting in middle school, with disordered eating, depression, anxiety and some challenges in relationships. My attempts to find help through the medical system as an adolescent left me feeling confused, misunderstood and pitied. From this experience, I know how uncomfortable and overwhelming it can feel to seek help. I also know from my own experience that your relationship to yourself can improve and that life can become worth living again.
In my junior year of highschool, I took a psychology class and realized that I had found my calling and my passion. I went on to receive my BA in Psychology from CU Boulder in 2008, and then pursued my MA in Counseling Psychology at Regis University in Denver and graduated in 2016. Thankfully, during this time I was able to work with therapists who I connected with and who helped me work through many of my difficulties.
While I was working on my master’s degree, I worked in the inpatient psychiatric unit at Porter Hospital as well as the detox and psychiatric units at West Pines Behavioral Health. I did my practicum with an organization called Wings that works with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. All of this experience opened my eyes to the many different ways that we suffer as humans, as well as the problems in our mental health system. I also saw the beauty of patients coming together to support one another and find hope during incredibly dark times in their lives.
After graduating, I continued to work at West Pines and learned how to run Dialectical Behavior Therapy groups in the Intensive Outpatient Program, often for individuals who had recently had a suicide attempt. Other issues were also very prevalent, including depression, anxiety, addictions, eating disorders and PTSD. As I continued to learn and grow as a therapist, I learned how many challenges were related to trauma and I wanted to be able to help people recover, which is why I became trained in EMDR.
I started my private practice in 2019 and strive to create a safe and non-judgmental space for my clients to recover from trauma and other ailments, explore who they are and who they want to become, have a space to talk about their feelings, concerns, and what it means to be human in this strange, painful, and beautiful world.
While there is much more I could say about my approach to healing, this Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quote encompasses much of what I believe and seek to embody:
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."
Personal Life
I became a mother in 2021 which has been an intense new journey of its own. While running my practice and parenthood take up most of my time now, I am also passionate about movement and have been very involved in yoga and circus arts (aerial silks, specifically) throughout my pre-mom years. Now I try to squeeze in a 30 minute workout when I can! I moved to Kansas City with my partner in 2022 and have been enjoying getting to know the people and all the fun things to do here.