As a health professional with more than 20 years experience, Mary French operates a private psychotherapy practice in Baltimore and Howard Counties, MD, where she works with adolescents, adults, and couples. Mary integrates both traditional and holistic approaches, and believes in treating the whole individual—mind, body and spirit.
Her approach couples conventional therapies, such as cognitive behavioral techniques with holistic methods, including mindfulness meditation, and past life regression therapy, when appropriate. Mindfulness-based meditation is a way of retraining the mind and body to stay in the present through a variety of meditation practices. This has been a very successful approach in reducing stress and creating a new lifestyle for many of her clients. Mary firmly believes that merging these forms of therapies, while respecting the beliefs of her clients, allows access to their inner strengths and resources, and facilitates healing.
Her desire to assist others with healing began in the early 1980’s as a registered nurse. Mary worked in several teaching institutions along the East Coast with critically ill patients who had complex health concerns. Many of these patients were undergoing major surgical operations or suffering from cardiac disease, chronic pain and disability. Anxiety and depression frequently added another dynamic to their physical difficulties.
It was not long after that Mary became disillusioned with the typical method of treating patients. She found that when traditional medicine could not “cure” people, many felt abandoned without hope. But, it was her personal experience with a chronic pain illness that served as the catalyst for exploring complementary methods of healing.
In the early 1990s, Mary enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Stress Reduction Clinic founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn, where she began the Internship Program for Health Care Professionals. This was her entree into mind-body medicine. She discovered the power of meditation to jumpstart the healing process. Mary describes this moment as life altering, significant enough to shift her once-held beliefs on healing toward a new world of possibilities.
Mary returned to Boston University, the institution where she earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing more than a decade earlier, to receive a master’s degree in social work. Her newfound knowledge and practical experience with holistic healing practices empowered her to move forward with a more complete approach to healing. This approach enabled her to connect with individuals by addressing the full magnitude and makeup of their being—the mental, physical and spiritual aspects. Further, Mary’s response to her own illness created a layer of understanding that made it easier to empathize with her clients.
As a professional psychotherapist, Mary had the opportunity to apply her comprehensive healing approaches to clients who suffered multiple mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, life transitions and stress, relationship and family issues, grief and loss, chronic pain and illness, sexual abuse and trauma, beginning with her work in an outpatient mental health setting at Lowell Family Services in Massachusetts. She then moved to Maryland, where she worked at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore for three years—prior to opening her private practice—and provided individual and group therapy for adolescents with learning, emotional and behavioral challenges in a Level V non-public high school. She has also worked at Family and Children's Services / Child Advocacy Center in Harford County assisting those who have experienced complex issues related to sexual abuse and trauma.
In addition to her current practice, Mary is the American Pain Foundation's Action Network Leader in the State of Maryland (www.painfoundation.org) and the past president of Pain Connection, Chronic Pain Outreach Center. She continues to develop and run programs for this nonprofit human service organization. For more information visit the Pain Connection website: www.PainConnection.org
Ever the knowledge seeker, Mary continues to explore other worldly healing practices. She has traveled to Ecuador with fellow health care practitioners to explore the healing work of ancient and indigenous cultures. She has studied under the direction of Alberto Villaldo, Ph.D. and his Healing The Light Body School.
Mary is also a frequent speaker on the topic of Chronic Pain, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and trauma and chronic pain. She has presented at various conferences such as Clinical Concepts in Pain Management, The University of Maryland Medical Center, National Association of Social Workers , Maryland Chapter on Interventions for Chronic Pain, A Day of Rest and Reconnection Through Mindfulness Practices, Pain Connection. She is the coauthor of Making the Invisible Visible; Chronic Pain Manual for Health Care Providers.
She is a member of the American Nurses Association, the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, EMDRIA - The EMDR International Association www.EMDRIA.org, and the National Association of Social Workers. She has successfully completed professional training in Past Life Regression Therapy from The Weiss Institute, founded by Brian Weiss, as well as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction training under the direction of Jon Kabat-Zinn.