MARLENE VALENCIA
MA, Psychotherapist
Pronouns: They/Them/Él
Hi there, my name is Mars. I am a compassionate witness, teacher, and a future ancestor.
My approach to life is rooted in interdependence, authenticity, and radical acceptance. Culturally, I am Mexican. I am Autistic (My pattern recognition game is mighty and so is my interest in psychology and emotional literacy), I am queer, a first-generation student, and I grew up low-income, as the eldest of four. Due to finances, my introduction to anything therapeutic was first through Self, community, nature, ancestral medicine, and eventually, therapy, so in my world, healing, is not a place we ever arrive to, but a wavelength we choose to keep riding.
As a person, as a therapist, I am aware that I can uphold the very systems that harm others, myself, and my clients. So, while, yes, I graduated from Northwestern and have a specialization in developmental trauma…your contributions and insights about your life and our work together, before and during, are of the upmost value to me. I stray away from assuming, so I actively seek and incorporate feedback. If you have no idea where to even begin, there’s a 100% chance we can discover that along the way, together. The majority of my clinical work has involved the following presentations: Children of immigrants, Dissociation, Autism, Life transitions, C-PTSD or developmental trauma, Anxiety, Divorce, Depression, Domestic Violence, Borderline Personality Disorder, Non-Suicidal Self-Injurious behaviors, and passive suicidality.
My approach to therapy, specifically, draws from Cultural-Relational therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Feminist Theory (I encourage my loved ones, including my clients to consider how their individual agency intersects with broader systems, both consciously and unconsciously), Antiracism, Internal Family Systems, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and it is deeply rooted in being trauma-informed. Regardless, I believe that therapy is meant to be personalized to the individual.
The communities that I am part of are made up of people in trauma recovery, disabled folks, folks learning to grieve and live instead of survive, folks who broke out of the gender binary, those learning what a healthy relationship with themselves and others looks like in practice, folks who are trying their best to exist in this reality that encourages us to muffle, dismiss, disconnect, and suppress our pain, to project it onto others, and to ignore the violence occurring internally, at home, in our communities, and to the global majority.
It would be an honor to be a part of your community; Thank you for being here, for listening, for witnessing and for trying. You matter and if you feel called, I welcome you to join me as we create a life that can hold us as gently as we all deserve to be loved.
Contact me to get started.
Text: 708.658.4864
Email: marlene@agavechicago.com