Mary-Ellen Martinez, PsyD, Clinical Psychologist

Hello! My name is Dr. Martinez. I am a licensed clinical psychologist and founder and President of Polaris Behavioral Health Services. I work with children, adolescents, adults, individuals, couples, and families. I am driven by a strong passion for providing outreach and services to traditionally marginalized and underserved populations. Our mission at Polaris Behavioral Health Services is to provide top-notch, compassionate mental health care by using comprehensive, patient-centered, trauma-informed, and culturally competent treatment modalities. I have over a decade of experience working in a variety of behavioral health settings. I am confident that my breadth of experience, affirming and solution-focused approach, and dedication to helping each individual set, remain focused on, and achieve their therapeutic goals will help each of my clients strive for a brighter tomorrow. If you need support navigating through a major life change, dealing with depression, anxiety, eating issues or are just feeling a bit stuck at the moment, I am here to walk alongside you in your journey towards a brighter tomorrow! Together, we will cultivate a safe and affirming space to set and achieve your therapeutic goals.

I currently offer therapeutic services exclusively via telehealth. This allows me to connect with clients who live anywhere in the State of Illinois.

The client-therapist alliance is the most essential part of therapy. This is why I believe in fostering an environment of mutual trust, commitment, and unconditional acceptance. In my experience this is achieved by setting clear expectations and boundaries at the onset of the therapeutic relationship and maintaining an ongoing dialogue about these expectations and boundaries as the therapeutic alliance progresses. One of the most tangible examples of this is working together to create clearly defined and measurable therapeutic goals at the beginning of our work together to establish our guiding metrics in our work together. I also believe in consistently and actively maintaining a feedback loop about things that are working well in our therapy sessions and areas that we could tweak.