28/07/2024
The Harmonious Living team welcomes Mary Ann Hea to the practice. She will be seeing clients in office and has a range of clinical experience. We are excited to have her on the team. 😊
Born in Germany into a military family, Mary Ann Hea graduated from the University of North Alabama with degrees in Psychology and English Literature. She was a newspaper journalist and college professor until returning to school later in life to receive a Masters in Social Work at the University of Tennessee College of Social work. Ms. Hea has been licensed to practice for over 30 years.
The majority of Ms. Hea’s career was spent at the Metropolitan Public Defender’s office where she was employed as a sentencing consultant, mitigation specialist, therapist and grant writer. She is the founder of the Davidson County Mental Health Court (5th in the nation) and several other grant programs created to boost criminal justice reform in Nashville. Ms. Hea was also the co-founder of the trauma non-profit The Institute of Forensic Traumatology.
Ms. Hea believes that life’s best teachers are gleaned from the world we live in, including from the tender lives of our clients. She employs a “be here now” approach to therapy, often utilizing cognitive behavioral therapy as a means to retrain old behaviors that are no longer serving the person adequately in their daily lives. Ms. Hea takes an eclectic approach to therapy as no two people are alike. As a researcher, Ms. Hea has been employed by Civil Rights Corps, based in Washington D.C. She is knowledgeable about Nashville resources.
While she enjoys working with individuals who have had run-ins with the law, she also enjoys working with s*x abuse survivors, depressive disordered individuals and grieving families. Ms. Hea employs humor in her work,something she believes to be a key to recovery.
