About

Maria is the Principal Psychologist at Meaningful Action Practice. She is a Clinical Psychologist and a Board Approved Supervisor. Her work is influenced by Brene Brown's Vulnerability Research and Kristen Neff's Self Compassion Work. 

 

Maria is a warm kind creative trauma-informed therapist. She works from a multiple parts framework where she understands that our inner worlds are made of multiple parts/self identities and honours the function of every part, emotion and need.  She understands that the angry and anxious parts often try to protect you and alert your internal alarm system for safety, sadness and grief parts want to honour what you may have lost, the inner critic and perfectionist parts attempt to drive you to do your best, resentful parts draw your attention to where you may need to instil boundaries and the joyful part can be your internal compass that guides you to your underlying values. But sometimes these parts start to create barriers or further wounds. She brings compassion to all parts to help understand them, unpack their wounds, understand what drives them to act in certain ways and how they can work together to help you live the meaningful life you want.  She has a skill in spotting them and giving them a voice in the therapy room.   She will hold space for you to explore your inner workings with delicacy and care whilst maintaining that there are no bad parts as they are all trying their best to help meet a need. Together you will work towards creating your life vision and how you will take these parts along this journey.

 

Maria has over 15 years of experience and expertise working with anxiety, depression, complex trauma, perfectionism, disordered eating, stress, relationship difficulties along with inner critic parts, self sacrificing parts, imposter parts, feeling not good enough parts and mistrusting parts.  

 

Maria is a Board Approved Supervisor who supports students, registrars and registered psychologists on their psychology journey.

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Therapeutic Styles:

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- Compassion Focused Therapy

- Parts Work

- Schema Therapy

- CBT-E, ACT and DBT Skills

- Interpersonal Therapy

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Career:

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- Clinic Supervisor at Western Sydney University.

- Casual Lecturer at Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors.

- Medicare Private Practitioner; Trauma Informed Clinical Psychologist for adolescents and adults with Anxiety/Depression/Eating Disorders/Low Self Esteem/Stress.

- Australian Catholic University Counsellor.

- Clinician and Community Development Co-ordinator across Western Sydney headspace Centres.

- Group Facilitator at The Butterfly Foundation.

- Group Facilitator at Ramsay Health Private Hospital.

- Family Therapist at UNSW/USYD Child Behaviour Research Clinic.

- Adolescent Psychologist at Chilled Plus Program Macquarie University

- High School Counsellor at local high school.