About Maria Kirsch

Maria Kirsch is a licensed psychotherapist (an LMHC) and a formal student of Emergence Psychotherapy for the last seven years. She is an Emergence Psychotherapy Practitioner (Level 4), an editor, and the previous owner of a yoga and meditation center. Earlier in life, she spent years traveling the world, where she studied language and culture in Spain and fund-raised to end sex trafficking and slavery of young children in South India. She is continually drawn to learn all she can about the nature of suffering, so she can help teach others to emerge from their own.

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LICENSE / Credentials

2020 LMHC NYS Licensed Mental Health Counselor #010433

EMPLOYMENT

2020 – Present

Full Time Private Practice / Center for Emergence, Nanuet, NY

In my practice at the center, I specialize in couples issues, selective mutism in teens, and chronic depression and anxieties. I've also, along with Steven and Sam, begun to develop a four year program in Emergence Studies which we hope will eventually become an accredited four year doctoral program.

2015 - 2020

During this five years, I interned at The Center for Emergence as a Mental Health Counselor, sitting in on sessions, being supervised 4-5 hours a week, and seeing children and teens, couples, and families. I also attended a monthly Emergence-related Professional Supervision Group with anywhere from 9 to 14 other practicing therapists.

EDUCATION

2017 M.A, Mental Health Counseling - Nyack College
2011 M.B.A., International Business - St. John’s University
2010 B.S., Public Relations - St. John’s University
2008 A.A.S., Business Administration - Rockland Community College

Measuring Personality - Mind Body Orientation (the first core quality)

Mind-Body Orientation was one of the first things I learned to see in personality. It was easy to spot in myself, but at first it was hard to see in others. Gradually, I learned to see it out in the world. And learning this one thing about personality has, by far, been the greatest change in my life.

I’d even call it the keeper of love and health in my relationships. For instance, my boyfriend and I used to spend a lot of time in the car, not talking. I’d often feel urges to fill empty anxious spaces and difficult conversations with words. I'd also frequently interpret these quiet times as that he was upset or mad.

Because I was blind to what was really happening, I'd accuse my boyfriend of lying a lot. I'd also say things like that something must be wrong and ask why he wasn't sharing it with me. When he didn’t speak during arguments, I'd assume he wasn't speaking becasuse he didn’t care. When he didn’t say I was beautiful, I assumed he thought I wasn’t.

Over time, I created interpretations around almost every quiet moment we had, never realizing how much of the good in our relationship I was missing. Learning about Mind Body Orientation taught me that none of these interpretations were true. Rather, we are just different.

I am Mind First. He is Body First.

Realizing this changed everything I thought I knew about our relationship, especially what I thought he felt about me.

For instance, I remember the first time I could feel that he looked at me and thought I was beautiful. He was sitting on the couch as I came downstairs and walked into the living room. I was dressed for a wedding and he didn’t say a word, not one word. He just looked up at me and kept staring. Then it hit me. He was wordlessly telling me I was beautiful.

Slowly, I began to see the same kinds of things in other people's relationships. This has changed everything I thought I knew about the world, including in the people I see in my practice. There's so much more love in relationships than I ever imagined. And teaching others to see this love feels wonderful.