Marianny Arribas, MA, MS, LCPC

Psychotherapist | Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor

Undergraduate Education in Brazil

Master's of Science in Educational Psychology (2010)

Master's of Arts in Mental Health Counseling | Northwestern University (2016)

Clinical Specialties or Interests

I am primarily interested in the psychodynamic approach, which is a modern psychoanalytic approach (use of techniques focused on the unconscious) as well as what it means and how it can help us live a better life.

Success with clients

I have had long-term clients, some of them since 2016 when I started. My type of work is long term work. I have had people who overcame addiction, I have people still in the process of healing from addiction. I have helped people overcome debilitating anxiety, so much so that they could not go to school. But now, they have gone to school, built meaningful relationships, found work, and are doing much better. I have had people come to me with a severe phobia and overcome it.

It's important to see success not as "I did something" but that people allowed themselves to still continue the journey of self-knowledge and self-understanding. Maybe their challenges will come back, maybe not. But what is important is they are allowing themselves to face the problem.

And with all of these success stories, I like to also mention my own. I also go to therapy for myself. I am also a client. In so many ways, the process of therapy requires a lot of courage to go through this process and to overcome fears. Therapy helped me. In the beginning of the audio clip labeled Group A, Marianny discusses her own success story with therapy.

What do you love about being a part of the YFC team? How would you describe YFC in a few words?

I love YFC. It has always been a very friendly environment. Great staff to work with. Everyone is so knowledgeable. I started as an intern and I've always found that it's a place of self-development and growth. YFC is very flexible. I feel free to execute things in the way that I like to do them.

Why or how did you get interested and involved in counseling?

It started in Brazil, in my undergraduate years when I started to learn about it. I fell in love with counseling then and it continued to be part of me, but I did not actively practice for several years. Even though counseling temporarily took on a dormant role in my life, I still loved it and my interest in it never went away. When I moved from Brazil to the United States, I had to acquire new degrees, a new language, and a new culture. I had to learn how to adapt and assimilate in my new environment. It was a process that eventually led me to revive my passion for counseling that had always been with me.

Being a therapist isn't just about earning your formal education and then that's it. There's so much more that happens after that--that's when things really begin. You continue to learn about yourself, learn about life, and how you relate to life. It is a personal encounter. Then we must ask ourselves: how do we use that personal encounter to help others? We are just the mediator so that everyone, in their own authentic self, can find their own way.

Why have you remained passionate about it since? What motivates you to continue each day? What keeps pulling you into it?

Aside from my long history with counseling, in the past four years that I've actively practiced, what makes me continue is my passionate self. I love to read, I love to find out new things, I am always involved in some sort of learning. I focus on learning not only techniques, but also how to be a better therapist. It's a constant thirst and hunger for knowledge. But I want to emphasize that it's not only technical or intellectual knowledge, which are wonderful on their own, but it's also the emotional part of it.

The constant reevaluation... It helps tremendously to go through the ups and downs. It's not about making life so wonderful and beautiful because that's impossible. Life is not only wonderful and beautiful. Instead it's about actually swimming in the melting pot of good and bad in life. And that gives us a lot of freedom! So maybe this is it: what keeps me looking forward to my job every day is that sense of freedom; the sense that it's a choice to engage in life as life is presented to me.

How do you like to work with clients? How do you connect with them?

My type of work is about relationships. It's always about building those professional relationships. Like every other relationship, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And then, in the process of building the relationship, the goal is to help them find patterns in their history, as it relates to their emotions, their thoughts, their beliefs, and help them to gain insight into those patterns and how the patterns affect their current state of being.

In the audio clip labeled Group B, Marianny explains how there is often a sense of repetition in our behavior, but a lot of times we don't realize how much we repeat patterns and how we can best heal from that. They can be patterns of anger, jealousy, misery, despair--anything really. But the goal is to realize that they are patterns and to understand this emotional history together. We look back to the past so that we can work better with the present moment. Like any other process, we need to understand origins and where things came from so that we can heal. Whether it's pain, suffering, or grief, these feelings get stuck in us. Unconsciously it's all there and it comes out as symptoms. So I always say that things don't get better naturally. Time doesn't heal. We heal. We heal our time and history. And it takes sitting through pain and suffering and feeling those things to heal. It takes effort to heal.

Do you have a favorite wellness strategy that you use with clients?

I don't necessarily use a specific strategy or tip and there is no "recipe" to it, but here is what I'll call "Marianny's tip." We are going to talk, we are going to listen, I am going to listen, and I am going to help you listen to yourself.

Often we don't have the space to do that. We can talk to our best friend or our partner, which can be wonderful and healing. But a therapist can help by listening to you in a different way, in a way that best friends or partners cannot listen because they are emotionally involved with you. Therapists can be the mediator of your own history for you to gain insights into your life. That's how I do it.

In the context of counseling and your role, can you share any challenges that you've faced along the way and how you've managed them?

Language will always be a challenge for me. I feel very comfortable with it, but of course some days are more difficult than others.

And more recently, undeniably, the COVID-19 pandemic made us revisit, reveal, restructure a lot of the processes in how we practice therapy and engage with clients. It is a constant learning process. I like to sit and have 1:1 therapy in person, so it has been a personal challenge to overcome all of the changes that the pandemic has caused. These are obstacles that I don't have control over. But it's an example of another obstacle that life brought to me. Some obstacles are more drastic and some are easier to handle, but it is possible to overcome them and I am already in the process of doing so.

Where is your happy place?

Home is my happy place. And it's more than just one home. It's my home here in Illinois. It's my home in Brazil. When I go back there, I call it home because it is.

What's something most people don't know about you?

I am an extrovert. I love to talk and put myself out there. However, most people would be surprised that I truly enjoy alone time too. I love solitude, where I can be on my own by myself. Of course I love companionship, but I also love to do things and go places alone, like going to a coffee shop by myself. Some people ask about it, wondering why I go places alone or maybe don't understand how it can be fun to do things by yourself, but I really enjoy my moments of solitude.

What's the last song you listened to?

Eric Clapton's "Layla." It came on in the car the other day. It's fun!

What's your favorite must-see movie?

I love so many movies. But there's some that I always remember. I'll mention three that I always talk about and mention when I have the chance.

Groundhog Day. Waking up in the same day and how to transform yourself in the life you have is a very cool concept.

City of Angels with Nicolas Cage. It's a little bit cheesy, but it has an encounter with an existential debate and shows how all it can take is one moment...and I am a sucker for that.

The Bridges of Madison County. In so many ways, it tells a lot about how we deal with life, how we confront existential encounters, and what makes us think in whole terms rather than specific terms.