Tricia Santi, LMFT

What is your role at Maui Recovery? What does that look like day to day?
As a therapist for Maui Recovery, I work closely with my clinical team members to provide individual, group and family therapy to our clients. We meet weekly with our Clinical Director and Executive Director and collaborate throughout the week to ensure our care is coordinated and responsive to each client’s needs.

I am also part of the larger team here at our center and attend weekly meetings designed to encourage communication and share needed information about our community, services and programs. All of our team works both individually and as a team with the goal of providing the best climate possible for our clients’ recovery.

There is a strong sense of team spirit among all the staff who work here at the center. From a good morning smile to informal conversations and more formal staff meetings, my time here at the center feels supported and encouraged by all. I feel part of a compassionate, authentic team of individuals committed to providing the best recovery program possible for our clients.

What is your educational and professional background?
I have been interested in understanding people and their behavior from an early age, so I earned my undergraduate BA degree in Psychology and followed that with a graduate MS degree in Special Education, an advanced graduate degree in Public School Administration and ultimately my favorite degree, a Master’s in Marriage & Family Therapy.

The first part of my career was in special education, teaching and administration. In my administration role, I began to apply what I understood about how children and families learn and develop across the lifespan to our policies and practices. Supporting children and their families became my professional passion. Children gifted with a strong foundation of love, safety and security shined in their abilities to apply critical thinking, explore and expand their learning, and demonstrate emotional intelligence and strong, balanced attachments in all their relationships. During this same time, over a four-year period, I became the mother of my two children, and my passion for supporting children grew from professional to personal. I entered a Master’s degree program in Marriage & Family Therapy and earned my degree when my children were young.

My children attended my graduation along with my partner and husband, and we integrated what we knew intellectually and professionally about counseling and teaching into our personal lives with our children. As my children grew, so did my private practice career as a marriage and family therapist. I began teaching counseling at the university level, merging practitioner training and experience with an academic skill set. This integrated counseling and teaching career path has now spanned more than 30 years. I am grateful for this path and the opportunities it has presented to me in my efforts to help and support others.

Why do you love working at Maui Recovery?
I love working here at the center as it is a unique opportunity to apply and integrate my years of counseling and teaching directly. I am able to help those who come to our center make positive change in their lives. Their courage to accept where they are, awaken to what they truly want in their lives and learn new skills to get there is abundant here.

I love the holistic combination of therapy, education and the carefully designed and supported outdoor experiences offered to our clients in the magnificent natural setting here on the island of Maui. Our program truly supports my personal belief that all healing and real change is an integration of body, mind and spirit. There is time for reflection, conversation, being part of a group process and individual therapeutic work to support the creation of new pathways for a life free from unproductive patterns. Room is made for a fuller experience of life and relationships, and each individual’s talents and gifts rise to the surface and emerge more fully in their lives.

What are you most passionate about professionally and personally?
I am most passionate about having the opportunity to walk with people through life’s transitions, those expected and unexpected. I believe in the natural ability of people to seek health and wellness. My life’s work has been rooted in the belief that within every transition lies an opportunity for healing, growth and greater freedom. I love supporting people in a therapeutic way to engender hope, offer compassion and support the courage it takes to meet these challenges and create a new life of balance and health.

What I say professionally is true of my personal life. I have been on a journey of becoming more fully conscious throughout my life, of accepting the challenges presented and always doing the best I can in the moment. I need and appreciate my quiet, reflective time and love learning more about my inner emotional and spiritual life. I also thrive on connection to others; my relationships are most important to me. I love the natural world and all that is offered freely: the healing ocean waters and breezes, the animals, the sun and the moon. I rest, heal and come to life in the natural world. My day begins and ends with a swim in our ocean, and often I am blessed to have a peaceful sea turtle grace my swim. My family is most important to me, and I have loved the experience of moving through time with my husband and my children and the openings and interconnectedness of it all. Spending time with family and friends, offering my gifts and talents to others and spending as much time as possible in the natural world completes my life.