Mary Sanger

I believe that the quality, contentment, and happiness we have in life is equal to the quality, contentment, and happiness we have in our relationships. Relationships with family, friends, lovers, children, co-workers – the list is endless. Life is all about relationships. As a Marriage and Family Therapist, Professional Counselor, and Chemical Dependency Counselor, I work with couples, individuals, families, and businesses with relationship difficulties. Therapy subjects might include, among a host of other things, infidelity, lack of connectedness, poor communication, unresolved conflict, enmeshment/co-dependency, or even being in relationship with a “crazy maker” and so feeling “crazy.” In addition to therapy, I provide consultation, assessment, and referrals for families or businesses trying to understand how to help someone with emotional, mental health, or substance use problems. I am also trained as a mediator and provide family and divorce mediation services (see below).

Returning to school after working in the business world for 20 years, I obtained my Master of Arts in Counseling from Argosy University Dallas in 2007. In 2011 I founded Insights Collaborative Therapy Group which merged my talent for business development and management with my psychotherapeutic skills. Since that time, I established a practice that is well-respected within the professional community for providing comprehensive collaborative mental health services as well as a place to mentor and give opportunity for newer therapists. In 2016 three of my colleagues joined me as owners of Insights Collaborative Therapy Group.

I have a strong commitment to helping clients find the tools to create their own happiness in relationships and enrich their connectedness to the world and the people around them. My theoretical orientation is based on Bowen Family Systems Theory and the work of Dr. David Schnarch. Both are centered around the concept of differentiation – a person’s ability to maintain a sense of self while in an emotionally and physically close relationship with another, balancing the need for attachment with the need for autonomy. Managing our own emotions and intellect allows us to more fully enjoy our own lives as well as engage in more meaningful, less conflicted relationships.

My therapeutic style is open, gentle and respectful, but direct. I assume my clients come to work with me because they are looking for help in changing something that is no longer working for them in their lives. However, conscious and sometimes unconscious resistance to change needs to be gently but directly confronted. Growing ourselves up isn’t always an easy or painless process, but it is one that is necessary for happy, joyful, meaningful relationships. I offer both in-person counseling and online counseling.

It is my desire to help individuals in troubled marriages heal and thrive, not just survive in their marriages. But I also want to provide couples who have decided to end their marriage or relationship a process that will allow them to transition with minimal residual damage, both emotionally and financially. So, I became specially trained as a mediator to provide such an avenue.

I am a clinical member of the Texas Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, the Texas Counseling Association, the Dallas Metro Association for Counseling, and a member of Collaborative Divorce Texas. I am also the author of Ready to Talk: A Companion Guide to Psychotherapy.

Services I provide specific to divorce or co-parenting:

Divorce and Family Mediation Services: As a marriage and family therapist, I have repeatedly seen unnecessary pain and suffering occurring to families during often too-lengthy and too-expense divorces. So, I became trained and certified in Family Law Mediation Services, as well as in the Collaborative Divorce Process, in order to provide a gentler, more thoughtful option for divorcing couples. Both of these processes can help create workable or even cordial relationships in divorcing and divorced couples. Clients are often surprised to learn the potential cost- and time-savings benefits of using mediation when divorcing. Click here to find out more about key qualities of mediation services. Click here to read about the benefits of family mediation.

Mental Health Neutral for Collaborative Divorce Teams: Collaborative divorce is a process for divorcing couples in which both spouses and their attorneys agree to keep contested matters out of court and commit to a transparent process using interest-based negotiation to settle the divorce.  The collaborative divorce process is a constructive alternative to a process that is frequently played out in courtrooms, or between adversarial legal teams.

Parenting Plans: I help divorcing couples create indiviualized parenting plans. A parenting plan is the formal declaration of the rights and responsibilities for each legal document parent. For example, it will outline child support, where the child resides, and who can make decisions on behalf of the child.  It typically is a very detailed document that includes things from pick-up and drop-off times to spending holidays with the children.

Parent Coordinator: Parenting coordinators are specially trained professionals whose work focuses on helping co-parents manage their parenting plan, improve communication, and resolve disputes. The role of a parenting coordinator will vary based on what a family needs and what the court may require.

Parent Facilitator: The role of a parenting facilitator is to help parents reduce the level of conflict and distress that their children are exposed to. I do this by guiding conversations toward solutions rather than fighting and blaming. Parent facilitaors are court mandated appointments.  I help  parents shift from “litigation mode” to “cooperation mode”, giving you the space and the opportunity to come to lasting agreements on points of conflict.