Currently Not Accepting New Patients
"I try to green and grow like this field, natural. Hope says, I’ll spring up when sunshine and weather say it’s time. Neighbor fields grow on their own.
Why not me?"
'Trouble'
“I want my words to pop-out pretty like daffodils, full of grace, unique petals and colors. If only my words could be a work of art in a big bunch like these flowers. If words could
flow in rhythm, one after another.”
'Trouble'
Purchase your copy of 'STUTTERS, A Book of Hope' today.
'Stutters' Received Notable Praise in the North Carolina Literary Review
Words Worth Hearing
a review by Julia Nunnally Duncan
"So, as I read Ricketson’s poetic account of her lifelong struggle to understand and overcome stuttering, I vicariously experienced this struggle with her…. “I hope my life is like that crocus, one of a kind,/to hear and accept, however I speak and bloom,/purpose and function profound, far from perfection.” She attempts to see her own uniqueness, like that of the crocus, as valuable […] I think Ricketson has accomplished her goal in Stutters, it is a book of hope, a stirring and enlightening book of hope."
Mary is accepting arrangements to read or teach poetry.
Everyone has the capacity
to live a happy and fulfilling life
Mary Ricketson, MAEd, is a North Carolina Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and a published Poet. Mary believes everyone has the capacity to live a happy and fulfilling life. She uniquely combines her talent as a psychotherapist with her art as a poet to engage with people on a helpful level. Mary works on the principle of making a safe and balanced life, taking responsibility for oneself, engaging support, and trusting oneself.
Starting in the helping fields in 1970, after receiving an undergraduate degree from Our Lady of the Lake College, San Antonio, TX, Mary moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina in 1974. She worked in the start-up phase of a sheltered workshop for handicapped adults, traveled to graduate school at night, received an advanced degree from Western Carolina University in 1979, worked as a therapist with a local mental health center, and started a private practice in 1987.
Mary serves survivors of trauma, people with mood or anxiety disorders, grief, and attention problems. She has taught psychology at Tri-County Community College and writes a monthly newspaper column, Woman to Woman. With a special interest in women’s issues, she was a founding member of the local shelter for abused women and is listed in Who’s Who in American Women.
Meanwhile, she grew her own food, built a handmade house, raised a child, learned a variety of mountain crafts, and ultimately fell in love with poetry to satisfy a hunger and to taste life down to the very last drop. She is still an avid gardener and operates an organic blueberry farm.