Dr. Maricela Soto

One's culture and environment greatly influence how we view and feel about the world. My concentration and emphasis in graduate study was community and culture. As a Mexican-American immigrant myself, I can appreciate the complexity of navigating the intersectionality of language, culture, education, gender, etc.

I have worked in diverse backgrounds starting in community-based organizations and then my worked in emergency room as a crisis worker in a community hospital where I learned to work in a fast- paced environment. I have also worked in academia, and as an administrator in in-patient hospital. I started private practice in 2007 in Chicago, Il.

I have come to appreciate that sometimes you have a "one shot" opportunity to help someone such as seeing someone in a critical point in their life where they might need to be hospitalized vs working with someone who needs the traditional psychodynamic approach to understand the root cause of one's pain such as abandonment issues, negative thoughts that we have about ourselves. Other times, you might be going through life transitions such as being a new parent, going through divorce, academic challenges, anxiety and you simply need tools to help you get through a tough patch in your life.

While I might be the expert in mental health, our work needs to collaborative approach where you are the most important member.

Compassionate and collaborative, and inquisitive. One of the things that I really enjoy about being a therapist is that I approach our work from a place of curiosity. I don't approach my relationship with clients as simply seeing patients through the labels as someone who has depression, bipolar, PTSD, etc., but rather that each person has a story and I need to hear the story from the client's perspective and together we decide where we focus and what we need to accomplish.

Making the client comfortable, and the goal is to connect and for the patient to feel heard and understood. The client needs to walk away from the intake with hope and that they are not alone in their journey to find answers to their long-time suffering.