Mary Warren

LCMFT

As a Kansas licensed clinical marriage and family therapist, I work primarily with adult men and women and young people who are 15 years old and older who are seeking positive changes for themselves and/or their most significant relationships.  Presenting issues I enjoy addressing include:  relationship conflict, developmental, single incident and complex trauma, low self-esteem/shame, mood/personality disorders, grief/loss, and parenting of adopted/foster care children.  Clients for whom faith/spirituality is an important value will find me very willing to help them incorporate that aspect of who they are into their healing process, as well.

My work is strongly informed by science, theory and practice.  I am an avid student of neuroscience, and the dynamics between the emotional, logical, and automatic functions of our brain and how to most effectively manage and heal the impact of historical trauma as well as present day stressors.  I draw from multiple theories to guide my work with clients including Emotion-Focused Theory, Bowenian Intergenerational Theory, Structural Theory, Cognitive Behavioral and Solution-Focused Theory, and Internal Family Systems Theory.

One of my most valuable tools I use in helping clients is Accelerated Resolution Therapy.  I have seen the transformative impact of even just one session of ART and there is no doubt that it works.  I am Master level trained and certified and working toward becoming a Basic ART Trainer.  I am a professional member of the International Society for Accelerated Resolution Therapy.  I work fulltime for Central Kansas Mental Health Center in Salina, KS, as an Outpatient Therapist and hope to soon begin facilitating Basic ART trainings throughout the Midwest United States, especially in Kansas.

As a therapist who is trained to look at life struggle through a relational and systemic “lens,” my passion is to help clients turn pain into power and see beauty in their brokenness in order to live a happier, freer, more joy-filled and productive life.  I balance offering compassion for the way things are with inspiring hope and motivation for the work necessary to create change.  I’ve learned that no one is beyond hope and everyone has strengths and potential that are just waiting to be activated.  I offer a safe place for clients to look more closely at what’s not working, imagine the life they’d like to have, and take steps forward in making their life and relationships all that they imagine.

Creating and sustaining positive change for individuals, organizations and systems has been my life’s calling since 1991.  Prior to obtaining my marriage and family therapy degree from Friends University in 2017, I worked at Wichita State University for 16 years co-directing a statewide community service organization based in the psychology department.  Through that work I led a staff of twenty in designing, facilitating and evaluating the efforts of more than 200 nonprofit, faith-based and grassroots organizations and community-wide strategic change initiatives.   After that, I worked as Project Coordinator for the University of Kansas implementing a National Institute of Health Grant to Study the Pathways to Adjustment and Resilience in Kids through research with foster children/youth and their caregivers.