Maria Gray

Maria Gray is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT #85366) based in Santa Monica, California, offering in-person psychotherapy as well as online therapy via Zoom to clients in California, New York, and Texas. Her approach blends person-centered (Rogerian) therapy with somatic psychotherapy, integrating both bottom-up (body-based) and top-down (talk) methods to help clients restore connection between brain and body. She specializes in addictions and trauma, and also works with anxiety, depression, grief and loss, divorce, relationship issues, adult children of alcoholics and/or mentally ill parents, and perimenopause and menopause.

Maria holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Vermont (1986), a Master of Education in Counseling Psychology from Boston University (1988), and a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University. Before becoming a therapist, she spent 20 years in the corporate world managing HR technology implementations, during which she maintained a daily meditation and yoga practice that continues to inform her clinical work today. A transformative yoga retreat in Costa Rica in 2010 inspired her to return to graduate school and pursue licensure.

Her post-graduate clinical training is extensive and somatic in focus. She is certified in both EMDR and Brainspotting, serving as an approved Brainspotting Consultant and Assistant Brainspotting Trainer. Early in her career she completed a two-year certification in the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), a sophisticated developmental trauma approach combining nervous system focus with exploration of thoughts and emotions. She is currently in her second year of a three-year Somatic Experiencing training program developed by Dr. Peter Levine. These modalities share a resource- and wellness-oriented, non-pathologizing philosophy aimed at helping clients reconnect to their bodies and process stored sensations.