Mareile has worked for more than 20 years as a counsellor with children, young people and adults for agencies, schools and as a private practitioner.

She has worked at the Home & Family Society for 10 years. She has been ACC registered for more than 15 years being contracted to the Monarch Centre and for the last 8 years to START.

For 30 years she has worked at the Christchurch Rudolf Steiner school as a teacher, Health co-ordinator and guidance counsellor

For more than 20 years Mareile has been working as a counsellor in agencies, schools and private practice with a diverse range of people of all walks of life. She supports people who are facing a wide range of challenges. Her particular interest is working with individuals and families to overcome trauma.

She is fully trained and experienced as a Somatic Experiencing Trauma Therapist including working with developmental and complex trauma. For more than 15 years she has worked as an ACC registered counsellor in sexual abuse support services. This has heightened her awareness and sharpened her focus for social justice and respect. Her work at the Rudolf Steiner School as a guidance counsellor has engaged her with young people in their developmental process of transitioning to adulthood.

She is an experienced supervisor within her professional body and mentors counselling students in training. As a group facilitator she offers training on issues of Adolescence, Non Violent Communication, Self-awareness and Awakening to personal growth. She draws on a variety of therapeutic styles including Narrative Therapy, Solution-Focused Therapy, Creative Arts and Sand-tray Therapy.

Mareile offers a warm and safe environment and likes to engage with people of all walks of life. She supports people to identify their strengths and to discover their unique potentials. She prefers working alongside people at their pace, valuing their own experience and expertise.

She takes a creative approach to supporting people to explore life, face their challenges and blocks, and find new perspectives. She is excited to bring 'body centred trauma therapy' to Christchurch which can release stress in the body and reduce emotional blocks allowing the person to become whole, stable and healthy again.

Master of Education / Counselling (Canterbury University)

Somatic Experiencing Trauma Therapy Practitioner

Diploma for Teaching (College of Education Canterbury)

Master of Science (University Bremen, Germany)

Member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (MNZAC)

ACC approved Counsellor for Sensitive Claims

Somatic Experiencing® is a potent psychobiological method for resolving trauma symptoms and relieving chronic stress.

It resets the nervous system, restores inner balance, enhances resilience to stress, and increases people’s vitality, equanimity and capacity to actively engage in life.

Developed by Dr. Peter A. Levine, a pioneering researcher and practitioner of trauma healing, author of Waking the Tiger, “trauma is about loss of connection – to ourselves, to our bodies, to our families, to others, and to the world around us.”

How does Somatic Experiencing Work

Somatic Experiencing® assists the body in releasing pent up emotional charges that became trapped in the nervous system as anxiety and hyper-arousal states. While animals in the wild discharge trauma by shaking it off, the human nervous system is not trained in this way. We can become like a car with the accelerator and the brakes applied simultaneously, leading to hyper-vigilance and fear. The work of Somatic Experiencing teaches us that trauma is not in the event, it is in our nervous system. In Somatic Experiencing we use inner resources, body sensations and slowing down the process to find balance and equilibrium in the nervous system. This supports healing and “renegotiates” the trauma instead of reliving it.

In Somatic Experiencing® sessions, clients are encouraged to tune into physical sensations, which creates the space for our bodies to reconnect with our innate healing response. This naturalistic process can resolve symptoms by gently discharging the high levels of nervous system arousal associated with trauma, and helping our bodies return to a more manageable level of functioning.

Somatic Experiencing® titrates traumatic material with highly resourced states while maintaining awareness of the bodily “felt sense”. It allows time and space for the highly aroused survival energies to be safely experienced and gradually discharged.