About Mary
A lifelong interest in how people grow, connect, and find their way.
My work has grown from decades of attention to human development, relationships, belonging, and the ways people make meaning of difficult experiences.
Mary Giancarlo, MA, CALCCertified ADHD Life Coach
A long relationship with child development
It started with children.
I began working with children when I was 17 and never really stopped. I taught preschool and then Waldorf kindergarten. Before moving into the public schools, I worked at Jackson County Mental Health on the Child and Family Team, and then at Community Works with teens involved in the juvenile system.
I then spent 21 years as a Child Development Specialist in the public schools. During those years I also kept a small private practice, working with individuals, children, teens, families, and couples.
Those years taught me to look beyond behavior. A child is always developing inside relationships, family life, school, temperament, strengths, sensitivities, and a larger world. Understanding that context changes the questions we ask.
I also taught parenting classes, which deepened my appreciation for how much parents are carrying, and how rarely a family challenge belongs to only one person.
How my approach grew
Learning to stay curious.
Over the years, I have continued studying the ways people understand themselves and one another. Process-Oriented Psychology has been the deepest influence on my work, and its founder, Arnold Mindell, PhD, is my core teacher.
Mindell, a physicist, therapist, and author, is known for dreambody work, which brings together Jungian psychology, physics, Taoism, and shamanism. His approach works with dreams and with the body, and it sees the situations of our lives as a dreaming process that is asking for our attention. In practice, that means approaching difficult experiences with curiosity rather than immediately trying to get rid of them.
I trained for 17 years with Matt Modrcin, PhD, whose work with couples, families, and groups had a lasting influence on how I understand relationships.
I am currently training in Brainspotting with Dr. David Grand and others. Brainspotting is a trauma-informed approach that grew out of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). It is focused, body-based work that uses where the eyes rest to help a person locate, process, and release emotional and physical pain held in the body, including the lingering effects of trauma.
My studies have also included neuroscience, attachment-oriented ideas, psychology, and mindfulness. I do not expect a client to know any of those terms. What matters is how they help us pay closer attention to what is happening and what becomes possible next.
ADHD
A strengths-aware approach to ADHD.
ADHD has become an important part of my work because it can affect so many parts of everyday life: attention, time, planning, organization, emotions, relationships, school, work, and the experience of feeling different.
As a Certified ADHD Life Coach, I help people understand the patterns that create friction and develop strategies that work with their lives rather than against them.
What I believe
Creative.
Resourceful.
Whole.
One belief has stayed central to my work: people are more than the difficulties that bring them through the door.
I want to understand what is already present: strength, intelligence, creativity, adaptation, longing, frustration, relationship, and possibility. The work is not about turning someone into a different person. It is about creating enough awareness and support for more choice.
The work is rarely about becoming someone else. It is about having enough room to see what is already there.