“We really can learn to come home to ourselves and create the inner security we deserve”.

Hello, I’m Margo. I’m a licensed psychotherapist, coach, speaker, writer and workshop leader. My therapeutic focus is helping people discover how good it feels to be securely self-attached. My lens on insecure attachment to self zeros in on all of the ways we self-abandon in every day life. Specializing in EMDR, self-reparenting and polyvagal nervous system therapies, I help clients heal self-abandonment by reestablishing a loving inner parent dialogue and regulated nervous system so they can build a secure foundational attachment to self.

From my lens, most of us self-abandon all the time, whenever we ignore our own quiet truth because we’re afraid to give ourselves permission to thrive. We are wary of displeasing others and we never learned to “warmly witness” our own vulnerable needs and feelings—sliding instead into addictive behaviors, relationships without good boundaries and the tyrannical rant of our own inner critic. Self-abandonment hurts, but it can definitely be healed.

The video podcast, Securely Self-Attached and Self-Abandon No More Substack newsletter, work on the solid premise that self-abandonment can be healed, “We can give ourselves permission to stop leaking our power through self-abandoning habits and come home to the self-love and the security we deserve”. My book, Self-Abandon No More: A Therapist’s Quest for Wholeness, recently completed and seeking representation, draws on two decades of clinical practice and my own recovery from codependency.

“For many women, the patriarchal culture they were raised in functioned like a large scale dysfunctional family. Similar to an alcoholic household, this structure makes it safer to attune to the needs of others, rather than listen to our own needs, burdening an entire generation of women with insecure attachment, not just to our parents, but to ourselves.”

I received my MSW from Adelphi University and my BA from Burlington College, where I did intensive training in psychodynamic psychotherapy. I earned a life-coaching certificate through the Newfield Network in Boulder, Colorado. I have served on the front lines of community mental health and substance use treatment at the Brien Center and Clinical Support Options in Pittsfield, MA between 2013-2020.

As an experienced workshop leader and public speaker, I have presented programs on relationship skills for women at Kripalu Center in Lenox, MA between 2010-2015. In 2023 I founded Berkshire Insight Meditation where I am a mindfulness teacher and facilitator. I am a member of the Berkshire Psychotherapy Network.

I was awarded an NEH fellowship, authoring an oral history anthology, Adolescent Females in American Subcultures, which is archived at the Library of Congress. I have continued to advocate for gender equity, serving as a commissioner of the Berkshire County Commission for the Status of Women from 2013-2017.

Prior to therapy and coaching, I was a nationally acclaimed botanical illustrator and poster artist. My series of 28 original botanical posters, including bestseller, Traditional Healing Herbs, sold over 300,000 prints.

Note: This website is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy.