About Martha S Bache-Wiig

My work as a Whole-Person LifeArt Consultant is informed by my background in analytical psychology and my formation in Existential Personalistic and Cosmoartistic Anthropology. I integrate Family Constellations, embodied awareness, creativity, and nature-based practices to help individuals, couples, and families understand and transform the patterns shaping their lives.

Online in English and Italian, with in-person experiences in Wisconsin and Calabria.

One of my earliest memories is of standing in front of my adoptive mother’s bookshelf when I was about five years old and pulling down a copy of Dibs: In Search of Self. * I was far too young to understand what I was reading, yet something about that book captivated me.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder whether my lifelong fascination with human growth and healing had already begun.

For more than thirty-five years, I have been exploring a question that continues to guide both my personal and professional life:

What helps human beings overcome the negative effects of their traumas and conditioning, and become more fully themselves?

* I have provided this link only for your information and convenience, not for purposes of advertising or personal gain.

I believe that every human being possesses an innate capacity to grow, create, love, and continually evolve.

I also believe that the pain caused by trauma, loss, neglect, violence, and other overwhelming life experiences is real. Contemporary research has deepened our understanding of how trauma affects not only our thoughts and emotions, but also our nervous system, our bodies, our relationships, and our ability to feel safe and connected. These wounds deserve to be met with compassion, respect, and care—not minimized, explained away, or rushed toward resolution.

Yet I do not believe that our wounds define us.

I believe they invite us to evolve.

Healing does not erase what has happened to us. Rather, it helps us restore a sense of safety, reconnect with ourselves and others, discover new meaning, and reclaim the creative potential that has always remained within us.

For me, healing is a whole-person process. It includes the nervous system, but it also includes our relationships, our family history, our imagination, our creativity, our values, our connection with nature, and our search for meaning.

My professional foundation was established in Italy through my training in Analytical Psychotherapy, Sophia-Analysis, Sophia-Art, and Existential Personalistic and Cosmoartistic Anthropology, the integrative approaches developed by Antonio Mercurio.

Over the course of six years, I had the privilege of translating many of Professor Antonio Mercurio’s philosophical and psychological works from Italian into English. Among the works I translated were Theory of the Person and Existential Personalistic Anthropology, Hypotheses on Ulysses, Love and the Person, The Cosmo Art Dialogues, as well as numerous other books and articles.

Through this work, I immersed myself in a vision of human development that sees each of us not only as capable of healing, but of transforming suffering into greater wisdom, creativity, love, and beauty. Translating these works became far more than an intellectual endeavor—it was an apprenticeship in a way of understanding the human person that continues to shape every aspect of my work today.

One of the greatest gifts I received from those years was learning to think integratively. Rather than reducing human experience to a single theory or technique, I came to appreciate the many dimensions that make us who we are.

That spirit of integration continues to guide my work today.

Over the years, I have expanded that foundation through clinical experience and continued study, weaving together insights from Family Constellations, humanistic and evolutionary astrology, Human Design, somatic approaches, Forest Bathing, and contemporary understandings of trauma and the nervous system.

I do not see these as separate methods. Rather, I see them as complementary perspectives that illuminate different aspects of the same human journey. My goal is never to fit people into a particular model, but to draw upon whatever perspectives may best support their movement toward greater freedom, authenticity, creativity, and a life of deeper meaning.

My work has also been shaped by the work of many remarkable thinkers and practitioners whose ideas continue to inspire me, including Martin Buber, Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, Melanie Klein, Alice Miller, Virginia Satir, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Harriet Lerner, Simone de Beauvoir, Bert Hellinger, Pete Walker, Dane Rudhyar, Richard Tarnas, Bessel Van Der Kolk, Peter Levine, bell hooks and many, many others.

Each has helped me understand another dimension of what it means to be human, how we can heal from trauma and negative conditioning, and what expanding into an ever greater ability to love ourselves, others and Life itself, can actually look and feel like in real life.

Together, they have reinforced my conviction that healing is never simply about eliminating symptoms. It is about helping people live with greater freedom, authenticity, creativity, connection, and meaning.

Every person arrives with a unique story, and no single approach is right for everyone.

My role is not to provide ready-made answers, but to accompany you with curiosity, compassion, and respect as we explore the patterns, relationships, experiences, and possibilities that are shaping your life.

Depending on your needs, our work may include dialogue, Family Constellations, symbolic exploration and archetypes, body awareness, nature-based practices, meditations and guided visualizations, inner child and inner family work, and exploration of practical tools that can enhance your daily management of your time, thought and energy patterns, professional life and finances, or other approaches that support your growth and emergence into a more confident, free, expressive, and balanced human being, capable of loving yourself and of giving and receiving love with others.

My intention is always the same: to help you discover a deeper and more fulfilling relationship with yourself, with others, and with the life you are creating.

My work is grounded in the understanding that emotional suffering is not a sign that something is “wrong” with us, but often an invitation to explore unresolved wounds, limiting beliefs, unmet needs, and patterns rooted in our personal and family history.

My approach integrates:

✨ Mind — thoughts, beliefs, patterns, meaning-making
✨ Emotions — unresolved feelings, trauma responses, relational wounds
✨ Body — nervous system regulation, somatic awareness, grounding
✨ Relationships — family systems, attachment, boundaries, connection
✨ Professional & Financial Fulfillment — aligning your work, talents, purpose, and material wellbeing with a life that feels sustainable and meaningful
✨ Spirit — purpose, meaning, creativity, deeper selfhood

The goal is not simply relief from suffering—but greater self-awareness, inner freedom, emotional resilience, healthier ways of loving yourself and others, and the ability to create a life that feels aligned, meaningful, and deeply your own.

I received my professional education and training in Italy, where I completed a specialization in Analytical Psychotherapy/Existential Personalistic and Cosmoartistic Anthropology, and after taking the State Board Exams for Psychology, became a licensed psychologist and a licensed Counselor in Existential Personalistic Anthropology. While I no longer carry these licenses, I am devoted to upholding the highest ethical standards of my profession.

My work has continued to evolve through more than three decades of study, counseling, teaching, and facilitating workshops in both Europe and the United States.

I am also certified in Family Constellations and Forest Bathing (each requiring two years of extensive study and supervised practice), and offer Astrology and Human Design consultations, Forest Bathing experiences, workshops, and educational programs devoted to supporting personal growth and the creation of a meaningful life.

I believe that our lives are not determined solely by what has happened to us.

While we cannot change the past, we can develop a different relationship with it. Even our deepest wounds can become part of a life lived with greater awareness, compassion, creativity, and freedom. They can nudge us forward to becoming true Artists of our own lives, while contributing in a positive, life-affirming way to our families, the communities and societies we are a part of, and to Life itself.

It is a privilege to accompany people on that journey.