We were lucky to catch up with SHIRLA DE MAGALHAES recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi SHIRLA, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I was born in Canada to Brazilian parents who moved back to Brazil when I was 5 years old. I was raised in São Paulo, Brazil, my parents divorced when I was 11 years old, my father was never a very present or involved parent in my life. My Father has been a distant figure that calls me on my birthdays and Christmas, when I was younger my mom would give him money so he could buy me a gift for those special occasions, all along I always knew it was her. She was surprised when in my adult life I shared my awareness of her scheme, she thought she was being smart and sneaky in order to maybe forge a false connection between my Father and I that wasn’t ever there.

My mother was a very independent woman, she had an overall positive attitude towards life, she was a go-getter, creative thinker, problem solver, she was self sufficient and one of the strongest women I have ever met! She worked very hard to raise me as a single parent, and I had the privilege to study in a private British School in São Paulo because she felt it was the best education she could give me. Studying at the British School allowed me to be bilingual my entire life. She felt it was a good investment for my future and I do believe her efforts paid off in my adulthood. My Father did not contribute financially (or emotionally) to my education until I went to college.

Seeing my mom work hard and rarely complain definitely set the foundation for my work ethics, especially since I too ended up being a single parent of two children and their dad was also not involved in their lives. I moved to San Diego, California in 1999 with the father of my two children who at the time were 2 and 4 years old. He came to do his post doctorate program for 2 years and I started working in the hospitality industry, excited to be able to acculturate so easily, in part because I was raised at a British school; so not only was I fluent in English, the British customs I grew up with at school were more similar culturally to the lifestyle in the USA than the traditional Brazilian culture, so I am extremely thankful for my mom who invested in a non traditional Brazilian education that later facilitated my own transition to living in the United States. Once I divorced, my mom came to live with me to help care for my young children and I hope I was able to give her some years of respite from the intense work she did for so many years. Living together in adulthood was not easy, especially because we were both so strong willed, but I could not have done it without her. Eventually she started working again as she always felt that not working made life very boring, she felt it was important to have a purpose.

Working full time as a single parent may have not been an easy task, I always wished I could have spent more time with my children, but just like my mom, having my kids was a motivator for me to keep going, and for 10 years I worked in the hospitality industry, enjoying the process and making the most of it. Once the kids were in middle school I remarried, had some more financial stability, and was able to focus a little bit more on my needs. I realized then, in my mid 30’s, that I was ready for a career change. As I started thinking what I might want to do, I noticed what I loved the most about my job in hospitality was listening to to other people’s stories and trying to help them navigate whatever challenges they were facing. My coworkers used to often come into my office and ask “is the therapist available?” That was the deciding factor that made me go back to graduate school and get my Masters in Clinical Psychology.

I feel that having had my mother as a role mother and support system was the foundation to my work ethics, and also guided me into always having my children’s needs as a priority and motivator. I also feel that just like her, I have been able to maintain mostly a positive and hopeful attitude towards life, knowing that I can conquer and do anything I set my mind to do.

My mom died last year of carcinoma of the jaw – May 18, 2023 – during her illness her strong willed (and stubborn) personality got her through the most challenging time of her life where she endured so much pain and discomfort for 9 months. In her last month of hospice she was struggling to let go, our last exchange of words was me telling her it was time to let go, to stop fighting, I was honest and told her I could no longer see her suffering, to which she responded
” but I am a strong woman!” I responded with “even strong women need to know the time to let go…” She went into a deep sleep/coma the very next day and passed away peacefully.

Thank you mom for all the resilience you passed onto me.

The picture I am adding is the last picture we took together before she was diagnosed with cancer, on her 83rd birthday. She was diagnosed a month and a half later.

SHIRLA, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT), after graduate school I focused my practice in working only with children, which led me to become a Registered Play Therapist Supervisor (RPT-S). I have always been drawn to Jungian Psychology and symbolism and that led me to get a certification as a Registered Sandplay Therapist. After 10+ years working with children I realized I no longer had the energy and motivation to be on the floor engaging in play therapy with the young ones, so I started shifting my practice (during Covid), to working predominantly with teens and adults. I still run a playful practice with teens and adults as you are never too old to play!

In 2019 I became a SoulCollage® Facilitator, a process that speaks deeply to me as you create a personal deck of 5″x8″collage cards to represent different parts of your personality followed by journaling about each card. My personal deck has more than 200 cards! I enjoy sharing this process with my individual clients in my private practice but I also do workshops and facilitate small groups of SoulCollage® in the community.

I believe my love and training in play and expressive arts therapies has been very helpful now that I work with adults, I enjoy doing inner child work, depth work, shadow work, exploring underlying issues instead of treating just surface symptoms. For clients that are interested I incorporate expressive art therapies such as sandplay therapy, therapeutic art, Vision Boards, Soulcollage® to help unconscious material to come to the surface for processing.

I have found personally that creative modalities can allow your therapeutic process to go deeper and at the same time it fosters creativity, fun and play, which naturally leads to a sense of inner peace and joy. I enjoy working alongside my clients to help them find a purpose in their life, and above all, to find Self-Love and self-acceptance. Having the ability to accept and understand all parts of our personality, even the shadow ones we don’t typically like, allow us to be more compassionate towards ourselves and others.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Since becoming a therapist was a career change for me in my mid/late 30’s, I felt I needed to catch up really fast. Having had previous experience in the corporate industry definitely helped me balance my role as a therapist, entrepreneur and networker.

After completing graduate school I worked at a non profit agency in San Diego for a few years, meanwhile I continued investing in myself by attending many conferences, trainings, getting certifications that helped me develop my market, at the time focused on child and adolescent therapy modalities.

Once I was ready to open my private practice, I started sending out emails to many other child therapists in San Diego trying to meet up with them, visit their offices, ask questions. Simultaneously I got involved with the California Association for Play Therapy, they did not have a San Diego chapter at the time so I decided to start a chapter back in 2015 and was involved with the organization for several years and became the President of the California Association for Play Therapy for 2 years. Being involved with CALAPT (California Association for Play Therapy) to me was pivotal as it increased my credibility and visibility, it was also personally fulfilling to be part of a larger organization of like minded therapists. Being a therapist in private practice can often feel very isolating, so I enjoyed connecting with peers and helping organize workshops, conferences , networking events, etc…

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

If I could go back I would choose the same profession and the same time frame, I would not have wanted to have been a therapist earlier on in my life. I have even asked my adult children if they wished I had been a therapist in their younger years (might have avoided some of my not so great parenting moments!), and both of them say “NO!”.

I feel personal life experiences enhance the therapist’s professional knowledge as your clients will bring in their life stories to you and when you are very young you might not really relate to as much as your life experience may have been limited until that point.

Opening my private practice in my 40’s felt like a perfect time for me, I was going through my own personal depth process in therapy, I had more tools myself to live a more balanced and healthy lifestyle, I had a lot more life experience professionally and personally, it was also a time when I felt more secure about myself in general and I believe that confidence passes on to my clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.solplaytherapy.com

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