Founder and Clinical Director of the Pennsylvania Gestalt Center for Psychotherapy and Training since 1976, Mariah Gladis, MSS, LCSW, has been a workshop leader at Esalen Institute since 1987 and is on the faculty of Omega Institute in New York. She received a Social Worker of the Year award from NASW where she is a Board Certified Diplomate, a Living Legacy Award from the Women’s International Center, and an International Stevie Award For Women In Business. She is on the Board of Camp Dreamcatcher—a camp for children affected/infected with HIV/AIDS, and on the Advisory Council of Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research’s “Social Justice Initiative.” Through the Mariah Fenton Gladis Foundation, Mariah offers workshops on the Healing Power of Forgiveness and Arriving Already Loved. Mariah is the author of Tales of a Wounded Healer, an accessible description of her life and gestalt psychotherapy practice.
Mariah, as a renowned workshop leader and psychotherapist, is known for her exceptional wisdom, insight, and skills, and the dynamic and innovative use of music to enrich the workshop experience. A 36-year survivor of Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), Mariah brings her extraordinary experience of living with this disease and speaks with what she calls her “ALS accent,” which is translated.
Mariah continues to conduct workshops across the globe, addressing a wide range of human challenges: from early life emotional trauma to debilitating grief and loss, from life threatening illnesses to people seeking more meaning and joy in their lives. As an international psychotherapist, staff trainer, teambuilding facilitator, author, motivational speaker, human potential champion, ALS survivor, and parent of two young men, Mariah uses her unique and powerful skills to help inspire people and organizations to create positive and healthy relationships for personal and professional excellence.
It’s hard to imagine that a woman who can hardly walk and talk due to ALS can hold a room spellbound with her boundless strength and compassion. That’s Mariah’s gift — by facing her own struggles straight on and tapping into the healing life force that exists in all of us, she has become a deep and abiding inspiration for others. Those qualities and her extraordinary skill as a psychotherapist are what keep people seeking her private counsel and lining up for her workshops.
Today, although ALS has ravaged her body, she continues to devote her life to healing and health on all levels. Her doctors call her a medical miracle. From the beginning she has aggressively pursued every avenue of healing open to her, including an organic, non-dairy, mostly vegetarian diet; mega-vitamins and herbs; acupuncture and acupressure; Pfrimmer deep-muscle therapy; exercise, Pilates and weight-lifting; her work and prayer.
Today she is in a wheelchair and her speech is slurred. With characteristic humor, she explains her ‘accent’ to participants in her programs. But none of this diminishes her powerful presence and expert ability to do her work. In fact, Mariah acknowledges that it is her personal healing journey that has expanded and deepened her capacity to heal others.