Our therapist: Maria Weeks, MS, MA, LPC-IT

Why I became a counselor

My path to counseling is both professional and personal. My early life included experiences of trauma and adversity that took years of support and reflection to understand. I know what it is to need a place where you do not have to perform strength, minimize pain, or pretend that what happened did not shape you.

Counseling mattered in my own life. Over time, I became drawn to the possibility of becoming the kind of helper who could offer another person a steady place to speak, grieve, question, and make sense of what they had lived through.

Why older adults

I have always felt a natural closeness with older adults. In my own family, some of my deepest relationships were with my grandmother, aunts, and uncles. I was interested in their stories, their humor, their perspective, and the history they carried with them.

That affinity became more focused during my hospice experience. As I visited people receiving hospice care in nursing facilities, I often passed residents sitting in hallways, dining areas, or doorways. Many simply wanted to say hello, make eye contact, or reach out a hand for a moment of connection. I also saw staff working hard to meet essential care needs in systems where time and attention were stretched thin. I did not see this as a failure of individual caregivers. I saw how easily emotional needs can become secondary when a care system is overwhelmed.

Those moments stayed with me. Later, in broader clinical mental health practice, I noticed again that I felt especially connected to older clients and to the complexity of the concerns they brought into the room. This practice grows from that recognition.

Education and clinical background

My education began with a bachelor’s degree in expressive therapeutic arts. I later earned a master’s degree in thanatology, the study of death, dying, loss, and bereavement, followed by graduate education in counseling that led to my clinical credentials.

My practicum and internship experiences included work with people with disabilities at RCS Empowers, experience alongside an art therapist, and hospice work with Compassus. After graduation, I provided clinical mental health counseling at Nett-Work Family Counseling in Sheboygan, serving a broad range of clients while finding that my strongest professional connection was often with older adults.

How I work

My approach is person-centered and relational. I value careful listening, authenticity, compassion, and respect for the client’s right to define the meaning of their own experience. I believe in professional boundaries, and I also believe a therapeutic relationship should feel human.

I am not here to take over your life or tell you what your story should mean. I am here to sit with you as you examine it, make room for what is difficult, and decide what you want to carry forward.

What it means for me to be a Licensed Professional Counselor-In Training

I am currently working to complete my supervision hours which is a part of the process toward licensure. During this time I have a designated supervisor Tami Joe DeLisle, MS, ATR-BC, LPC. She Runs UnMasked Expressive Therapies unmaskedtherapies.org and is also an Art Therapist herself. She is there as a guide and guardian helping me to provide the best cares possible to my clients, puzzles out how to make ethical decisions, and urges me to keep track of my own self-cares. She is a true blessing in my practice and my life.

The meaning behind Gratia Plena

The name of this practice is connected to my grandmother and to the kind of grace she offered me throughout my life. She taught me, without using clinical language, what it feels like to be received with tenderness when you are not at your best. Gratia Plena Therapies is my attempt to carry a small part of that lesson into my professional work: to create a place where people can arrive as they are and still be met with dignity.