Meet Maggie
About Maggie Christopher – Psychotherapist, Certified Holistic Nutrition Counselor & QNRT Practitioner
I was born to be a therapist.
As you likely already know, choosing the person you want to be your therapist is an important decision. The therapeutic relationship plays a primary role in determining your success in therapy and needs to be someone you resonate with and trust. This is why I offer a free, 60-minute QNRT Consultation to determine if I’m the right fit to support you on your healing journey.
Therapy is a place to be deeply seen, understood, nurtured, and challenged. An effective therapist needs to embody a blend of nurturing support and loving, direct honesty. This type of support can be a powerful way for you to find your Truth about what you need and desire in your life.
How My Practice Developed
Let me share a little background about how I developed my therapy practice. In addition to being a psychotherapist, I’m also a holistic nutrition counselor. Actually, it’s how I got started down this path of healing. From a young age, I understood how the food I ate had a strong impact on my health and mood. I grew up in the 70’s and my Mom was a self-proclaimed hippie who shopped at the 3rd Street Market Health Food store in Ohio where I was raised.
When I became a twenty-something living on my own, however, I lost sight of the powerful truth that food is medicine. Like many young adults, I wasn’t taking great care of my health, and it started to show: I gained 25 pounds, started feeling emotionally down and anxious, made poor decisions in relationships, and had a myriad of other symptoms indicating a downturn in my health. Eventually I realized it was time to change the way I ate and cared for myself. That was the beginning of my health revolution.
Once I improved my health, I got clear that I wanted to support others with similar goals. At the time, I was working as an executive assistant for a leadership team of seven for a Fortune 500 company (which, incidentally, gave me great skills to be able to run a business). My quest for health and nutrition knowledge led me to the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York City, and I graduated as a holistic nutrition counselor in 2007. I started my health coaching practice while still working my corporate job during the day. As my practice grew, I realized that to support clients to change the way they cared for themselves I needed deeper counseling skills. So, I went back to school….again.
There are many different avenues to becoming a therapist/counselor; I wanted to be a marriage and family therapist because I deeply believe your family of origin plays a significant role in shaping who you become. A marriage and family therapy program dives deeply into this understanding. I received my Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy in 2013.
Then, after six years of doing deep, meaningful therapy with clients, I noticed a consistent thread emerging among them that explains why people struggle to change and nourish themselves well – even when they fully want and intend to change: trauma.
At first blush, “trauma” can sound like a strong label, but the definition of trauma is “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.” Everyone on the planet has experienced a ‘distressing experience.’ We can’t get through life without these experiences, even in the best of family situations.
My talk-level therapy was not supporting my clients to release past traumas. This led me to do my own research by personally engaging in different body-based therapies to release trauma. I discovered Quantum Neurological Reset Therapy (QNRT) and was blown away at how easy and effective it was at releasing trauma. It changed my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined. The science behind QNRT recognizes that traumatic events get stored in the body, so while talk therapy can be helpful in understanding the effects of traumatic events, it does not release the stored trauma. Body-based therapies like QNRT, on the other hand, do effectively release the trauma, allowing us to make positive changes and move forward differently in the world.
I knew I had to bring this healing modality to my clients, so at the beginning of 2019 I started the QNRT training program in Atlanta, Georgia. I am thrilled that I have this trauma healing tool to offer clients. It’s effective and simple for the client and produces significant results.
The powerful combination of psychotherapy, holistic nutrition counseling and QNRT might be just what you need to start your own wellness revolution!
The Personal Side of the Story
I’ve shared how my career developed, now I’ll share more personally.
First, I would not be the therapist I am without my messy and painful history. Growing up I experienced: parental addiction and mental illness, parental abandonment, poverty, and moving and changing schools far too often. And from this traumatic upbringing, I made some not-so-great choices in love as an adult, resulting in divorce and many failed relationships. My upbringing and past have served as my teacher and have given me a deep empathy for people struggling emotionally and experiencing trauma.
I’m always growing physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I am incredibly drawn to heal, grow, and evolve, and my life gets sweeter the more I answer this calling. I have noticed the more I grow, the stronger my intuition grows. This intuition is what supports me in every session. I believe the best therapy comes from a well-trained therapist who knows to get out of the way and allow wisdom to come through them.
I see 16-18 clients a week and create a balanced, enjoyable life outside of work so that I have a deep well of love and support to offer in my sessions. I love spending time in nature and hiking with my mini-husky named Sadie, getting biweekly shiatsu massages, and having weekly date nights with my partner and soulmate, Eric. I like to read but the book has to be completely engaging for me to invest time in it. I also love spending time with my dear friends who make my life sweeter in so many ways. How I care for myself outside of work is a key component to how present, loving and effective I can be at work.
And here’s an interesting tidbit. If astrology is something you’re drawn to, you might like to know that in my 12th House (connection to things on the other side of the veil) lie Mars, the Moon and Kiron, which means I have a passion for healing emotional wounds. As I said, I was born for this work and I truly love it.
I hope we get to meet!
My Training
I graduated from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York City in 2007. In 2008, I completed an additional year of training called Immersion with this same school.
In 2013 I graduated with honors from UW-Stout’s Master’s of Science in marriage and family therapy program. They accept 13 students a year and have a rigorous program with a dual focus on doing one’s own healing while also learning to grow into an effective therapist. UW-Stout has one of the oldest and best therapy programs in the country.
In 2019 I became certified as an Advanced Quantum Neurological Reset Therapy practitioner.
Maggie Christopher is currently providing QNRT, Psychotherapy & Holistic Counseling services in the St Paul, Minneapolis and the surrounding Twin Cities area. Your first consultation is always free!
