Mary Anne Costerella, MA, LADC

Licensed Mental Health Clinician
Licensed Addictions Counselor

Mary Anne in 3 words: Holistic, Insightful, Transformative

“I am NOT what happened to me, I am what I CHOOSE to become.”

“We should not pretend to understand the world only by the Intellect. The judgment of the Intellect is only part of the TRUTH.” - Carl Gustav Jung

Mary Anne Costerella, MA, LADC, is a licensed addictions and mental health clinician in the state of Connecticut. She graduated with a dual master’s degree in Counseling Psychology and Pastoral Counseling from St. Joseph College in West Hartford. State and internationally certified for over 25 years, Mary Anne has been employed by several hospital systems including Natchaug, Middlesex, and Hartford Healthcare. She has extensive experience helping clients understand substance (alcohol and other drugs) and process addictions (relationships, work, food, money, sex, shopping, etc.) as self-soothing attempts to medicate inner woundedness stemming from trauma and loneliness in childhood and adolescence. Mary Anne also managed the coordination of a clinically structured treatment team designed to support healthcare professionals—such as physicians, nurses, and dentists—at risk for impairment due to chemical dependency and physical or emotional illness.

Mary Anne’s clinical style is both skilled and compassionate, helping clients develop deeper awareness of their addictive and avoidant behaviors. She creates a supportive environment to explore internalized shame from codependent family systems. Utilizing Gestalt techniques such as the ‘empty chair’ method, Mary Anne helps de-stigmatize addiction and guides clients to separate their identity from their behaviors. She educates individuals on the interconnected nature of addiction and mental illness, encouraging them to view addiction as a survival-based relationship developed in response to unmet emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs rooted in generational trauma.

Mary Anne integrates clinical expertise with holistic and existential perspectives, challenging traditional notions of psychotherapy. She believes that psychology—the study of the psyche, or soul—must honor the body-mind-spirit connection. Quoting Carl Jung, she embraces the view that “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.” Her approach is both transformative and deeply intuitive, offering clients permission to heal and grow beyond their diagnoses.

Mary Anne is passionate about group dynamics and often says, “Compulsive self-reliance is the dis/ease (lack of ease), and connection is the cure.” In the paraphrased words of Virginia Satir, she believes “the client is the family and the family is the client.” Mary Anne works with adolescents, adults, individuals, couples, and families.

In her free time, Mary Anne enjoys practicing hot yoga, walking, playing pickleball, attending theater, playing piano, reading, and spending time with friends and family.

Mary Anne offers:

• Addiction and trauma-related disorder treatment, including anxiety and depression.
• Support for codependency rooted in perfectionism and shame-based family systems.
• Certified grief education (trained by grief expert David Kessler).
• Psychodrama and Gestalt-based techniques such as the ‘empty chair’ method.
• Therapy focused on “anxiety as the missing stage of grief.”
• Somatic awareness through the principle “your body speaks your mind.”
• Relapse prevention therapy (Certified Relapse Prevention Therapist).