Marlane Agriesti, LMFT
My Approach
My therapeutic approach is integrative and attuned to
your unique strengths, struggles, and talents. Some approaches we may use include imaginal techniques such as Dream Tending, artistic expression, soul-based therapy, and guided meditation.
Our work will not be limited, however, to particular techniques, as you are a complex being living within a matrix of emotions, experiences and relationships. I am especially adept in working with creative people in all fields and walks of life. am actively engaged with my clients, listening, reflective and interactive in the natural unfolding of your therapeutic journey.
I also provide practical suggestions and often suggest homework to help solidify your evolving sense of self in the world outside of therapy. Above all, My goal for you is to create a life that is rich and fulfilling in ways you may never have imagined possible.
I like to begin with an initial 50-minute session to discuss your concerns and therapeutic goals and how we might work together to achieve them. At the end of the session, we can decide if it would be beneficial to move forward together with therapy.
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
About Me
Each stage of my life has created the person you will meet in therapy. After four decades of studies and work in literature, publishing, dream work, memoir and poetry writing, and more recently founding and operating a cooking school in Tuscany, I embarked on a new career in depth psychotherapy. I feel that this chapter of my life is a deep inner calling to accompany fellow travelers on the road toward their own expanding awareness and an increasing capacity for love, compassion and acceptance of all that is.
My work has been enriched by countless teachers and mentors, artists, writers, visionaries and most significantly, my courageous clients. C.G. Jung, Joseph Campbell, Marion Woodman, Stephen Aizenstat, James Hillman, and Robert A. Johnson are among those who sparked the flame of passionate curiosity that led me to explore the inner world of dreams, imagination, psyche and self actualization. I have found that if you approach each moment with curiosity and wonder, you will arrive at the ultimate human destination: self-compassion, generosity toward others, and the capacity to trust in the mystery of life. I have also found that this seemingly final destination is but one post on a collective human journey toward healing our shared soul, animae mundi.
I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with an M.A. in Depth Counseling Psychology with emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy from Pacifica Graduate Institute; an M.A. in English Literature from New York University; and a B.S in English Literature. from East Tennessee State University. In addition, I have completed Advanced Intensive Dream Tending Certificate Programs I, II and III, with Stephen Aizenstat.