About Mary Baures

Mary Baures is a writer and an artist who practices psychology in Peabody, Massachusetts. She holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from Antioch New England, a certificate of advanced graduate study in human development from Harvard University, and three master’s degrees – one in psychopharmacology from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, one in counseling from Boston University and one in creative writing from Boston University.

Before she became a psychologist, Dr. Baures was a writer. She interviewed writers such John Cheever and artists such as Minor White and published articles in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, the New Age Journal and many other publications. She taught creative writing in the MFA Program at Emerson College where she directed a highly successful writers’ conference.During her doctoral work, she noticed that most of the psychological literature described how people became ill from traumatic experiences. Many writers she knew used creativity to process the themes of a crisis and transformed in positive ways. Since they did not seek therapy, Dr. Baures felt that psychologists did not know much about their process.

Dr. Baures research Undaunted Spirits – Portraits of Recovery from Trauma was published in 1994 by Charles Press. In 1996 she contacted Oscar winning film makers Cambridge Documentary Films and together they worked on a documentary - Strong at the Broken Places- Turning Trauma into Recovery.

In 1992 toward the end of her doctoral work, to escape the wordy, cerebral side of school, Mary Baures took night classes at Montserrat College of Art.

The landscape of her paintings mirrors her writing on trauma recovery. Both are worlds of magical transformations where vivid and connecting things emerge from dark backgrounds. The forces that comfort and support are animal guides and winged spirits. Bulls, lions and polar bears are tenderly entwined with people lending them strength and agility while angels play banjos and dogs guard the moonlit landscape from rooftops.

Her paintings have been shown in numerous places around the North Shore of Boston. In 2004 Ditto Editions of Marblehead started making museum quality prints of Baures paintings. Eight, signed, limited edition prints are available here.