Background and Education
Dr. Lynn Marlow has been a practicing psychologist for over 20 years. In the course of her career, she has provided individual psychotherapy and relationship counseling to hundreds of clients from every walk of life. As a seasoned psychotherapist, her skills and intuition are exceptional, and continue to grow. She has, over the years, been a researcher, a consultant, a clinician, a teacher, an artist and a parent — roles that inform one another and have brought to her work a combination of flexibility, open-mindedness, creativity, and intuition that is unique. She is respected by her colleagues and her community for her skill, her integrity, and her commitment to her work.
Dr. Marlow graduated from Duke University in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science degree, cum laude, in psychology. She entered the Counseling Psychology program of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, in the fall of 1979, and received her Master of Science degree in 1982, and her Ph.D., in psychology, in 1985.
Work History
Dr. Marlow moved to Connecticut for her internship at Elmcrest Psychiatric Institute in 1983.
After completing her internship, she was a psychotherapist for The Motivation Center in Hartford, an agency specializing in therapy work with adolescents and their parents. She was licensed in 1986 by the state of Connecticut as a psychologist. In 1987, she took advantage of a maternity leave to start growing her private practice, and left TMC in 1989.
Dr. Marlow maintained a full time private practice in Cheshire, Connecticut for almost 20 years. She has worked with a broad range of clients: mostly adult women, about 20% adult men, 15% couples, 10% age 15-22. In 2007, she closed her practice to move to Asheville, NC, where she accepted a position as clinical psychologist and Military Sexual Trauma Coordinator with the Charles George VA Medical Center. In her new role, she devotes most of her professional time to providing mental health care to men and women who are survivors of sexual abuse, assault, and harassment. She also provides training to staff, and is actively involved in the psychology internship program, where she supervises and mentors doctoral psychology students who are preparing to enter the field.
During her career, Dr. Marlow has worked cooperatively with a wide range of other health professionals. For several years, she served on the Cheshire Child Protection Team, an interdisciplinary committee established to provide resources to educators, health care providers, and families throughout the community. In 2004, Dr. Marlow developed a workbook and workshop that offers structured assistance designed to enhance life satisfaction, relationships, and overall quality of life for individuals and couples in retirement.
Dr. Marlow also has artistic interests that complement her therapy work. Since 2002, she has been developing her skill in the art of kiln formed — fused, slumped, and painted — glass. She formed Marlow Glass Arts as vehicle for showing and selling her work in shows and galleries in the northeast.
Treatment Philosophy
Dr. Marlow sees life as a dynamic process of growth and change. She gains particular satisfaction from her work with clients who are going through a period of struggle, change and growth, whether caused by normal development, such as the transition into adulthood or the changes of midlife, or by extraordinary circumstances, such as illness, death, or divorce.
Especially since reaching midlife herself, one of Dr. Marlow's favorite populations to work with are midlife women. She frames the midlife “crisis” as an awareness of the need to evolve, and as an opportunity for redefinition. She encourages and challenges these women as they discover their own worth, their own desires, and learn to confront their fears. She stays beside them as they make excruciatingly difficult discoveries and decisions. She find great satisfaction in watching their creativity bloom and their voices strengthen.
Dr. Marlow's work starts from an interpersonal approach, and then broadens that approach to encompass all of the ways in which we relate to others, to our world, and to ourselves. It’s easy to see this interpersonal approach in her relationship work, where she uses each partner’s family history to give clues about patterns, fears, expectations and reactions. Less obvious is her use of interpersonal theory in individual psychotherapy, where the emphasis is primarily on relationship with self. She explores care of self, images of self, assumptions about self, boundaries of self, and judgment of self, again informed by a client’s history and experiences.
Dr. Marlow's years of professional and life experience have taught her to respect and celebrate individual differences. Her work with individuals stresses self acceptance and self care, patience and awareness. Her work with couples embraces the importance of love relationships to all our lives, and stresses acceptance, respect, laughter, and communication.
The course of Dr. Lynn Marlow's own life has offered its share of struggles and unexpected turns. She has had to learn to find her own voice, and to have the courage to take her own path. She has developed professionally, of course, but also interpersonally, spiritually, and creatively. She knows that there is no substitute for time and awareness. Experience, intellect, and intuition have come together for her, and she is constantly stretching the limits of her knowledge, her strengths, and her profession. At her stage of life, she has come to appreciate and enjoy observing, letting go, and resisting the urge to control. She sees every person as a creative and dynamic being, and views unique expressions of the essential self to be vital for achieving growth and happiness.
Overall, Dr. Marlow practices in a way that respects her training, and the traditions and ethics of her profession, while being flexible and open to alternative approaches, creative interventions, intuition, and uncertainty. Her work values and fosters connection — with self, others, work, community, earth, and spirit. She strives to create a therapeutic atmosphere that acknowledges the whole person, with a deep appreciation for how the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical all interconnect.
©2007 Creativity Unbound
