About Michele DeMarco, PhD
Welcome
I’m happy you’re here.
I’m Michele — a therapist, clinical ethicist, writer, and researcher who’s spent the last two decades on a “souljourn,” studying trauma generally, moral injury and lost innocence specifically, and resilience.
Officially ...
I’m an award-winning writer and a specialist in the fields of psychology, trauma, health, and spirituality. I’m also a professionally trained therapist, clinical ethicist, and researcher who’s spent the last two decades studying trauma generally, moral injury and lost innocence specifically, and resilience. I’m one of Medium’s Top Writers for Mental Health and Health, respectively, and the author of the Psychology Today blog “Soul Console: Healing from Moral Injury.”
My writing has appeared in national and international publications, including the New York Times, POLITICO, The Hill, The Free Press, The Boston Globe, The Daily News, Psychology Today, The War Horse, and Medium, among others. I’ve been featured as a psychology and spirituality expert for MindBodyGreen, The Daily News, Integrative Practitioner, Lifehacker, Bloomberg/WNBP Radio, Partners HealthCare, and the American Heart Association. My upcoming novel, About Others, won the national Mystery Writers of America’s Helen McCloy Award for Mystery Writing. I've taught Creative Nonfiction and Conflict Transformation at California Institute of Integral Studies. I'm represented by Kimberley Cameron & Associates.
Ultimately ...
I’m an ardent believer that the same life that brings us joy also (sometimes) brings us pain. More importantly, that every aspect of life has a role to play in making us who we are today and who we’ll be tomorrow. (FYI, this doesn’t mean “making lemonade out of lemons” or grudgingly accepting “the moral of the story”). It’s about integrating these experiences into the narratives we live by. As I wrote in my new book, Holding Onto Air: The Art and Science of Building a Resilient Spirit, we don’t always have control over the events in life, but the script we live by is ours to write — and write it we must, as only we can.
When I was young and glowing with innocence, my imagination couldn’t have conceived the “plot twists” in my own narrative that I’d have to contend with, including several unexpected close calls with death, meaningful health challenges, and my own moral injury, among others. These days I’m trying to, as I affectionately refer to it, “Live G”: with gratitude, grace, generosity, and grit. (Admittedly, some days are more successful than others.)
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area (praying the now-sullied city on the hill will return to its former glory) with a guy who is basically MacGyver and two unabashedly spoiled Maine Coons cats named Seamus and Sophie.
