Mara Lefler

Couples & Individual Therapist Intern MFT-i

$60.00 per 50 min. session

“Fall in love with taking care of yourself. Fall in love with the path of deep healing… with patience, with compassion and respect to your own journey.”

— Sylvester McNutt

Affordable Couples and Individual Therapy

Mara is a student clinician working toward licensure in Marriage and Family Therapy. She is pleased to be working under the supervision of Heather Holmgren, LMFT and founder of Simple Modern Therapy. The intern clinician model benefits couples and individuals in therapy by offering a substantially reduced cost for services, making therapy more affordable, while receiving services that are closely supervised and supported by a seasoned therapist and clinical supervisor of more than two decades.

Additionally, Mara is entering the therapy field as a mature professional with valuable life experience. She has a Masters of Fine Art in acting and has spent the majority of her working career in the arts. Mara felt strongly that she needed to pivot away from acting to become a Marriage and Family therapist, to help those who could benefit from the arts as a way to connect to themselves.

The Importance of Connection and Autonomy

Mara believes connection is incredibly important for us and our happiness, but so is becoming a self-determined individual. Mara’s goal in therapy is to help individuals develop and maintain a strong sense of self, while learning how to engage in relationships through healing communication and bring meaningful perseverance to stuck interactions, thereby increasing intimacy and connection.

Mara also understands the importance of developing a creative and curious internal landscape. She believes in helping individuals and couples discover motivations and intentions in day-to-day interactions. And through understanding ourselves and our relationships more fully, our world will grow, blossom, and become infinitely more deep. Mara wholeheartedly believes that if we discover ourselves through the art of living truthfully, in moments of either living well, or ill, we will develop a stronger sense of ourselves.

The Differentiated Self

Mara’s approach to working with couples, individuals and families is using Bowen’s Theory of Differentiation of Self. Differentiation is a continual process, through the span of a person’s life, that holds two paradoxes in orbit; connection and autonomy. In simple terms, differentiation is the practice of being able to “maintain self” while navigating contact with your close circle of relationships.

Along with Mara’s Bowenian therapeutic approach she also incorporates a Narrative Therapy mindset. She believes in the power of the stories we tell ourselves. Mara believes, with a strong therapeutic alliance, we can become more equipped to create new novel experiences that change our dominant narrative.