Today we’d like to introduce you to Maria-Alejandra De Araujo Sanchez.
Hi Maria-Alejandra, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My path has been shaped as much by geography as by profession. I come from a multicultural family, and I have lived in five different countries on three continents. Having to adapt and find my place in those environments gave me a deep fascination with cultures, languages, and the stories people tell about who they are.
From a young age, I was drawn to questions about human nature: What is consciousness? How is meaning created? How is identity shaped by culture and family history? What do our differences say about how we cope with the challenge of being alive and human?
At the same time, I was drawn to analytical thinking, which led me to initially study computer science. I had a wonderful first IT career working in fields such as education, humanitarian aid, and foreign affairs. But the deeper questions kept calling me back. I eventually began working as a research assistant in clinical psychology and neuroscience labs, where I had the opportunity to study the human mind from a scientific perspective.
That experience clarified something important for me. Understanding people, their histories, identities, and inner worlds was where I felt most intellectually engaged and personally alive.
That realization led me to transition fully into the mental health field. I chose to train as a clinical social worker because I strongly believe that while mental health challenges are often rooted in biology and personal history, much of our suffering is also shaped by the world we live in, its pace, its pressures, and the expectations placed on people.
Today I lead Horizon Online Therapy, a group practice dedicated to helping people navigate trauma, anxiety, identity questions, and major life transitions. My experiences living across cultures and languages continue to shape the work I do. Many of the people we serve are navigating complex identities, whether that involves multicultural backgrounds, complicated family stories, or the challenge of finding one’s own place and direction in the world.
For me, therapy is ultimately about helping people recover a sense of coherence in their own story. Having lived across cultures and disciplines, I have seen how easily that coherence can be disrupted. Many people carry experiences that feel fragmented or difficult to reconcile with the rest of their lives.
Part of the work of therapy is creating the space where those pieces can be understood and integrated, so that a person’s life begins to make sense to them again.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. Changing careers later in life meant stepping away from something stable and beginning again as a student. There were moments when I wondered whether it was wise to leave a path that was already established and start over in a new field. But the questions that had always fascinated me, about human suffering, identity, and resilience, were difficult to ignore. In the end, curiosity and a sense of purpose outweighed the comfort of staying where I was.
Building and running a group practice has also come with its own challenges. When you start something like this, you quickly realize that you are wearing many hats at once. In addition to being a therapist, I also had to learn how to manage the practical realities of running a small organization: hiring and supporting clinicians, navigating regulations and insurance systems, handling finances, and building a sustainable structure for the practice. Much of that learning happened along the way. It required patience, problem-solving, and a willingness to step into roles that were completely new to me.
Another challenge has been learning to maintain balance while carrying many responsibilities. Running a practice while continuing to do clinical work can be demanding, and there were times when I had to learn, sometimes the hard way, the importance of protecting time to rest, reflect, and stay connected to the things that sustain me. Mental health work requires presence and clarity, and I believe that therapists can only offer that to others if they are also attentive to their own well-being.
At the same time, those challenges have been deeply meaningful. They inspired me to build a practice intentionally, with the goal of creating an environment where therapists’ well-being is taken seriously. My belief is that the quality of care clients receive is directly connected to the conditions in which therapists work. When clinicians have sustainable caseloads and the time to rest and recharge, they are more present and mentally available in sessions. They also have the time to think deeply about their work and benefit from the support of thoughtful colleagues. In those conditions, therapists are far better able to offer the kind of presence and attention that meaningful therapy requires.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Horizon Online Therapy LLC?
Horizon Online Therapy is a small group practice dedicated to providing thoughtful and effective mental health care. We work with individuals who are navigating trauma, anxiety, depression, identity questions, and significant life transitions. Many of the people who come to us are at a moment in their lives when something no longer works the way it used to, and they are trying to understand how they arrived there and what needs to change.
Our clients come to us carrying complex life stories. Some are navigating multicultural identities, complicated family histories, adoption experiences, or the feeling of existing between different worlds or expectations. Others are exploring questions about identity, belonging, or how they understand themselves in relation to others. Many are also dealing with the long-term impact of trauma, difficult relationships, or periods of loss and uncertainty. Often these experiences leave people feeling disconnected from themselves, from others, or from a sense of direction in their lives.
A central part of our work involves helping people understand the patterns that shape their emotional lives and relationships. Many individuals are not only responding to their present circumstances, but are also influenced by ways of coping and relating that developed much earlier in life, sometimes across generations. When those patterns become visible and understandable, people often gain a greater sense of freedom in how they respond to their experiences.
Our work is both practical and reflective. Therapy can involve developing tools to manage anxiety, depression, or overwhelming emotions, but it is also about healing old wounds and making sense of one’s history, relationships, and identity. We aim to create a space where people can think more deeply about their lives, understand their reactions with greater compassion, and begin to make changes that feel authentic and sustainable.
Ultimately, our goal is not simply to reduce symptoms, but to help people reconnect with themselves and develop a clearer understanding of their own story. When people begin to experience their lives with greater coherence and self-understanding, they are often able to move forward with more clarity, resilience, and a stronger sense of belonging in the world.
What sets Horizon Online Therapy apart is the level of care and thoughtfulness we bring to our work. Our therapists are deeply engaged in the process of helping people understand themselves and their experiences. We spend time thinking carefully about our clients’ situations and remain attentive to developments in psychological research and clinical practice. At the same time, our work goes beyond traditional talk therapy. In addition to reflective conversations, we help clients learn practical tools and exercises that support change at multiple levels, emotional, cognitive, and physiological. This can include approaches informed by trauma research, somatic awareness, and neuroscience, helping people not only understand their experiences but also develop new ways of responding to them in daily life.
What I am most proud of is that the practice has remained deeply thoughtful and human in its approach. In an era where mental health care is increasingly delivered through large digital platforms and high-volume models, we have tried to build something that allows for careful, attentive work. My hope is that Horizon remains a place where people feel genuinely seen and understood, and where therapy becomes a space not only for relief from symptoms, but for deeper understanding and meaningful change.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
My best childhood memories are of exploring the world with my best friend. We would ride our bikes to ancient ruins in France or Switzerland, wander through forests, and spend hours imagining the lives of the people who had once lived there. Those places carried a quiet sense of history that fascinated me.
We also loved sitting with adults and listening to them tell stories about their lives. Because I grew up around different cultures and languages, those conversations often revealed very different ways of seeing the world. People spoke about family, hardship, migration, love, and loss in ways that reflected their culture and their history. I remember being struck by how the same human experiences could be understood so differently depending on where someone came from.
Looking back, I think those moments planted the seed for the work I do today. They taught me that every person carries a story, and that understanding those stories is often the beginning of understanding the person.
Pricing:
- Free 15-minute consultation calls available
- 55-minute individual psychotherapy session: $200
- 40-minute individual psychotherapy session: $150
- We accept several major commercial insurance plans in Oregon
- Online sessions only (secure, HIPAA-compliant platform)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://horizononlinetherapy.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HorizonOnlineTherapy
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/horizononlinetherapy
