Mariana L. Naldi, Ph.D.
Specialties
- anxiety & depression
- identity & adulthood
- psychological testing
- diagnostic evaluation
- social connection
- teens & adults
Education & Experience
- University of Texas at Brownsville: BA
- Palo Alto University: Ph.D.
- National Register of Health Service Psychologists #54499
- PSYPACT APIT #17080
We all need different levels of support through our various stages of life. Nobody does this all alone! So, it’s important to me that you feel welcome and cared for throughout this process. What matters to you, matters to me.
Therapy style
In the space we have, we will work together to identify your goals and needs for the time we spend together. The most important thing to me is to meet you where you are. The direction we take together on this journey may be one that you have always worked for, or very new in this moment of your life. Or we may be working toward a future version of yourself you have wanted to become.
We have many tools at our fingertips to use together along the way. My style of therapy integrates various therapeutic techniques. I might recommend we track how you are feeling with a short questionnaire, create a piece of art around a recent experience, practice a hard, but necessary conversation in session, discuss an available app to help support a new coping skill, or even set up a behavioral experiment to challenge yourself between sessions. If appropriate, we may discuss the benefits of a comprehensive psychological evaluation, with a uniquely tailored toolbox of evidence-based measures. We have many resources we can choose from, so we can put some of them to work for you towards your goals.
This is a judgment-free zone where we practice being kindly curious, even about the parts of yourself that you don’t want to see or be seen. We all have those parts! We’ll learn to build a different (maybe less contentious or anxious) relationship with them. We might even find ways to appreciate the opportunities they present to us for growth.
You don’t exist in this world alone and therapy shouldn’t treat you as if you do. While you do have the ability to make changes on an individual level, you also exist as a person in a variety of systems. Understanding your interactions within those systems (whether it’s within your home environment, your school or work setting, or within the unique culture of your family) can provide necessary context for understanding your life. At best, these systems bring a richness and complexity to our lives, but at worst they can cause us suffering and keep us stuck. With increasing awareness of ourselves in these systems, we can notice how they contribute to our strengths, our challenges, or both at any given time.
My Outcomes
Areas of Treatment
- abuse
- acceptance
- adolescent girls
- affairs & infidelity
- aging
- anger
- anxiety
- chronic illness
- chronic pain
- couples/marital therapy
- depression
- emotional overeating
- grief & loss
- happiness
- self-esteem
- sex & intimacy
- stress
- trauma
Areas of Treatment
- abuse
- acceptance
- addictions
- adolescents
- adulthood
- aging
- anger
- anxiety
- assertiveness & confidence
- body-mind integration
- boundaries
- chronic illness
- DBT
- depression
- diagnostic evaluation
- distress tolerance
- eating disorders
- emotion regulation
- existential issues
- family dynamics
- grief & loss
- happiness
- identity
- life transitions
- mindfulness
- OCD
- panic attacks
- psychological testing
- self-esteem
- sex & intimacy
- social connection
- stress
- teens
- trauma
- weight loss
- work stress
Schedule
Monday through Thursday: 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Friday: 9:00 – 12:00
Contact info & Fees
720-721-3619
$230 for 50-minute session
$345 for 75-minute session
videos
Goethe said, “You can never get rid of what is part of you, even if you throw it away.” Sometimes, trying to throw “bad” parts of us away, or just “accentuating the positive,” can be a major part of the problem. Joseph Campbell said, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” Exactly so.
The body-centered part of the therapy is the method for going into the basement. The relational part is how we build the trust and safety between us so that we can open the door and work in whatever way may be necessary to help you get what you want from therapy. The existential part is the commitment to a kind of change or transformation that is felt clearly, and that is lasting and authentic: a process oriented to feeling and action–to attain congruence between one’s inner felt-sense and one’s ideal self-in-the-world. For couples therapy, it means a transformation in the way you connect, trust, and find solace in one another.
“Propriophobia” is Greek for “fear of the inner self.” It’s at the root of many psychological symptoms, including depression, addiction, and anxiety problems. We avoid what makes us uncomfortable. In trying to distance ourselves from a felt truth inside us, we develop all sorts of symptoms and problems.
We want to escape something that’s inside, and we cannot. Paradoxically, not trying to get rid of the problem makes it possible to begin to get rid of the problem. A full embracing of these difficult feelings tends to dispel them. Like a horror-movie poltergeist that won’t leave the house until respected on its own terms, such ghosts inside us must get what they need before they can rest in peace. Propriophobia is a repulsion between different parts inside us: an inner war between body and soul, our head and guts, how we feel and what we think, or between who we are and what we’re expected to be. Therapy for this consists of dissolving and moving beyond these tensions.
Who are my typical clients? The broken-hearted. The betrayed. The unmotivated. Overwhelmed parents. Struggling couples. Those with feelings that are too powerful. Those disappointed by ineffective therapy. Lonely and disconnected executives. The numb and alienated. The traumatized and deeply shaken. Those who are spiritually yearning. Those who are missing their inner compass or needing it seriously recalibrated.