STAFF & FACULTY DIRECTORY PROFILE
Mary Kathryn de Mahy
Job Title:
Associate Therapist
Department:
Counseling
Email:
Phone: (510) 577-9100
ext.
Started at O'Dowd:
2022
Degrees:
B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John's College in Santa Fe
M.A. in Counseling Psychology from The Wright Institute in Berkeley
Originally from:
Lafayette, Louisiana
Why I Teach:
Most powerful teaching technique:
Why are the subjects you teach important?:
One way I like to think of therapy is making an appointment with yourself. I believe that having time and space away from the pressures and expectations of every day life is essential to getting to know oneself, which is essential for contentment, resilience and self-determination. I believe therapy can help us learn and practice (for ourselves and others) openness, honesty, reflection, compassion, forgiveness, understanding and acceptance. It can help us let go of assumptions, resentments, and unkind thoughts about ourselves and others. It can help us build our skills and confidence to become the people we are meant to be so we can contribute our unique gifts to our communities and the world that needs us all.
Favorite quotes:
Favorite trivia:
Recommended visual media:
Recommended reads:
Some of the books that have blown my mind and shaped my consciousness (or just made me laugh out loud): The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive by Martín Prechtel; A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe and Dreams all by Derrick Jensen; Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism by Jack D. Forbes; Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici; The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible by Charles Eisenstein; From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers by Marina Warner; Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel; Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov; One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez; Moby Dick and The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville; Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi; Act One: An Autobiography by Moss Hart; Me: A Memoir by Brenda Ueland; The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow; Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks; Someone Has Led This Child to Believe: A Memoir by Regina Louise; No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard C. Schwartz; Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind by Linda Buzzell
Hobbies or outside interests:
Swimming in the ocean, in Lake Del Valle or any natural body of water, backpacking trips, day trips with friends, drawing and painting, singing and playing music with friends, hosting parties for the people I love, chilling in the same room as my cats, making up recipes, growing vegetables, bingeing shows that are actually good as well as guilty pleasures, relishing a day with nothing to do.