Dr. Mariana Colandrea

Dr. Mariana Colandrea is an English-speaking clinical psychologist and psychosomatic psychotherapist in Naples. She receives patients in person in Naples and works online with people living elsewhere in Italy and abroad, in English and Italian, with children, adolescents and adults.

Her approach is built on the integration of mind and body. Psychosomatic work starts from something most people have already noticed: distress does not stay in the head. It shows up as a stomach, a back, a chest, a pattern of sleep. Treating those as separate problems is how people end up with a folder of normal test results and no explanation.

She holds a Specialisation Diploma in Integrated Psychosomatic Psychotherapy with a Developmental Focus from the Forma Mentis School (Humanitas Consortium, MIUR), grounded in neuroscience, psychosomatics and relational models. She draws on several evidence-based approaches: Schema Therapy, Interpersonal Metacognitive Therapy, and psychodynamic and Gestalt models.

She works with anxiety and panic attacks, grief and trauma, relational difficulties and critical life transitions, as well as with depressive difficulties, OCD and personality difficulties. She also works with perinatal loss, one of the most isolating experiences there is and one of the least served, and with older adults, including in the context of dementia.

Her practice is explicitly relational, intercultural and person-centred. She lived for a period in the United States, is at ease with American and with Arabic and Middle Eastern cultural contexts, and has experience working with expats. She describes herself as drawn to other cultures rather than merely tolerant of them, which is a different starting point for a patient who is tired of translating themselves.

You do not have to pick her yourself. At Therapsy every person is matched by a human being, not by an algorithm: our clinical team reads your request, and if Dr. Colandrea is the right fit for what you are bringing, they will introduce you. The first call is free, and it is there to check that the fit is real before anything begins.

Fewer than 1 in 100 therapists joins the Therapsy team. Dr. Colandrea was personally vetted by our Clinical Director, Dr. Francesca A. Boccalari, on three non-negotiable criteria: she shares our values, she speaks at least one language beyond Italian, and she has a physical practice in Naples where you can meet in person, not only online.

Mariana Colandrea does not work alone. She takes part in Therapsy’s internal clinical supervision, a standing group where therapists bring their most demanding cases, train together and ask for help when a situation calls for it. Every therapist in the network, Case Managers included, can turn to our Clinical Director for clinical questions and further training, and Therapsy runs regular professional training with senior therapists and external trainers. Scheduling, invoicing, payments and the rest of the paperwork are handled by Therapsy, so that her time with you stays clinical work and nothing else. On your side, the same platform gives you one place to see your sessions, invoices, payments and documents.

At Therapsy you do not have to pick your therapist from a list: you start by speaking with Dr. Francesca Boccalari, our Clinical Director, who listens to what you are going through and matches you with the therapist she believes is right for you: Mariana Colandrea, or one of her colleagues. Then you have a free introductory call with that therapist, and only after that do you decide whether to start.

And if the fit turns out not to be right, you are not back at square one. Dr. Boccalari and her team find you another therapist inside Therapsy, at no cost, without you having to tell your story from the beginning. Choosing a therapist while you are struggling, in a language that is not your own, is a lot to ask of a person. That is the part we take on.

Dr. Colandrea is registered with the Italian Order of Psychologists. She receives in Naples and works online with patients across Italy and abroad.