Maria Caballero Jaime: Answering the Call to Wholistic Healing at Living Waters

A visit to Living Waters Therapeutic Catholic Counseling Center means the chance to meet a host of dedicated counselors, focused on wholistic healing through God’s love. One member of the team is Maria Caballero Jaime, MHC-LP who recently spoke about her practice and how she came to respond to a calling to be a counselor.

Maria received her Master’s in Pastoral and Mental Health Counseling from Fordham University, yet it was her prior involvement in community outreach and advocacy that led her to her current vocation. Born and raised in Mexico City, she is bilingual, and sensitive to the nuances of multicultural counseling.

She believes the greatest gift for a therapist is the gratitude received when healing and progress are seen in a client. When considering traditional therapy and the model at Living Waters, she explains that it is the structure of the organization and the emphasis on compassion that is offered at the Center. Counselors meet people ‘where they are,’ incorporating accountability and trust in treatment.

Maria has been a counselor for the past 8-9 years. There were several indications that moved her towards this career. She had worked as a pastoral care volunteer, witnessing homeless individuals in the subways of New York. She was moved when a hospital patient, who was homeless and bumped into Maria at the subway platform, thanked her for her prayers, responding to the faith aspect of her concern. She spoke with her spiritual director in Brooklyn, Father Kevin Cavalluzzi, at the time when she wanted to move beyond volunteering to become a trained pastoral and mental health counselor, a calling she knew would be life changing.

From time to time she meets people who believe they could benefit from counseling, but are reluctant to ask about it. She seeks to understand the reason for their hesitancy, and reminds them that no financial or cultural barriers would prevent them from seeking help. Anyone looking for a deeper dimension in their therapy finds there is a strong connection between their faith and the counseling they would receive, set in the context of their values and beliefs with a structured approach. Maria recommends clients work to incorporate therapy into their daily life – actions are powerful. Change, however gradual, is progress.