Maris Pasquale Doran, LCSW

PSYCHOTHERAPIST | MIDLIFE SPECIALIST | SPEAKER | AUTHOR

I am a clinician, a midlife mother, and someone who has lived what I teach.

Twenty years of clinical work gave me the expertise. My own life gave me something no training could.

Columbia University, MSW · Columbia University Faculty · Georgetown University, BA

New York Times Bestselling Co-Author, Piper Chen Sings

Featured Speaking: 92Y · Los Angeles Times Festival of Books · TJX · Delta Dialogues

Totally Booked with Zibby · Pulling Threads · Betches Childproof

When I was a young child, a babysitter studying medicine showed me brain scans, and I became captivated by how humans grow, adapt, and make meaning of their lives. I studied psychology and sociology at Georgetown University and earned my MS in social work from Columbia University in 2006.

While my fascination with neuroscience never faded, I found my purpose in the therapeutic relationship, supporting clients as they build resilience, presence, and self-trust. My clinical work is rooted in neuroscience and mindfulness, and I returned to Columbia as a faculty member to teach mindfulness and the healthcare system.

My dedication to emotional awareness extends beyond the therapy room. I co-authored Piper Chen Sings, a New York Times bestseller, with my sister-in-law Phillipa Soo. The book speaks to self-expression and personal agency, the same themes at the heart of my therapeutic approach.

Teaching graduate students and speaking to readers reaffirmed how much I love guiding groups and communities and ultimately inspired the creation of Midlife Mothers: Pause. Reset. Reclaim.

The tools that carried you through the earlier chapters of your life are often not enough for this one.

My background tells part of the story. I am also a woman who speaks to her dog in a love language she never even used with her children, who dances in her kitchen until she is sweating, and who loves getting down on a dance floor as much as breaking it down in an intimate corner with a friend.

We are going to get real and intense together, and we are going to laugh.

The work I do is heavy, and the person sitting with you in it does not always have to be.

That levity is real and so is the weight I have carried. One of the most defining experiences of my life was my father's diagnosis and death from pancreatic cancer.

When he got sick, my roles as daughter, mother, wife, and clinician collided and competed. Devoted to showing up fully as his daughter, I also wanted to remain present in my marriage and attentive to my boys.

The gap between how I wanted to show up in each role and what my nervous system could manage was real. I found myself heaving in the shower because it was the only place I could find privacy.

I floated through many days feeling untethered, unable to anchor myself in a present that felt almost unbearable. Sleep became unreliable. Monitoring my phone constantly, bracing for the call that would change everything, left me half-absent in the times I most wanted to be fully present.

Time with my boys was clarifying and real, and it sat alongside stretches where I was somewhere else entirely, even when I was standing right there.

My dad died six days after New York City shut down for Covid.

There was no ritual. There was no gathering.

Grief had nowhere to go except through me.

During that chapter, I leaned into and deepened my mindfulness practice with urgency. That necessity reshaped how I show up in my own life, how I teach, how I sit with clients, and how I guide and facilitate the Midlife Mothers program.

Doing this work myself, not just holding space for others, clarified everything about how I offer it.

This work exploring emotional reactivity, transition, grief, and caregiving is not theoretical for me. I have lived it, and that experience only enriches what I offer.

If you are ready to build the awareness and self-trust to show up fully in your life, this is where we begin.

WHY THIS PROGRAM

Twenty years of working with adults through the most complex transitions of their lives has taught me that the tools that carry a woman through the earlier parts of her life are often not enough for this one.

Women do not need more information about midlife.

Therapy is not always the right container.

Relating with friends can remove isolation but lacks any applicable tools.

Podcasts and soundbites are hard to integrate into real life.

Mothers in midlife need a structured, supported space that takes them out of their heads and into their transformation, with clinical grounding, real accountability, and someone who understands the full complexity of what they are carrying. The Midlife Mothers program fills that gap.

This phase demands that women look at identity, role collision, grief, the stories directing their choices, and what their nervous system can actually hold.

That demand does not speak only to mothers or only to midlife.

It belongs to anyone doing the serious work of living intentionally.

It is also what shapes my content as a speaker, a facilitator, and a clinician.

© Copyright 2026 Maris Pasquale Doran. All Rights Reserved.