Hello, I'm Cristina Mazzeo!
I work with people who are capable, self-aware, and ready — the ones who already sense something isn't working and are done waiting for it to fix itself on its own. My approach is direct. I'll tell you what I'm noticing, not just reflect back what you already told me. Twenty years as a Licensed Professional Counselor taught me that most people already have what they need to change their life — they just haven't had someone willing to name what's actually in the way. That's my job. Not to hand you a diagnosis and send you off with it. To help you see your own strength clearly enough to use it.
My Story
When I was a teenager, my father — absent from my life since I was four — turned out to be serving a life sentence for rape and murder. I spent years afterward deciding what that fact would and wouldn't be allowed to mean about me.
I grew up in low-income housing with an addicted stepparent, so by the time that news landed, I already understood how labels work: they're either a box someone else puts you in, or one you build for yourself. I went to therapy to make sense of it — and found a clinician who treated my history as material to build with, not a diagnosis to manage. That changed the direction of my life.
That's the work I do now, and it's why I don't just reflect things back to you. I push. I ask the direct question. I don't let a diagnosis — mine or yours — become the whole story, because it rarely is. Your past can explain you. It doesn't get to define you.
Education, Certifications & Teaching Credentials
Education
Masters of Science, Community Counseling, Wilmington University
Post-Master’s Certification, Child and Family Studies, Wilmington University
Bachelor of Arts, Behavioral Sciences, Wilmington University
Certifications
Empowered Living Member licensed to instruct on a multitude of mindset subjects
John Maxwell Team Certified Coach, Trainer and Speaker, to bring proven leadership strategies and practices on behalf of John Maxwell that organizations wouldn’t otherwise be able to access
Nationally Certified Counselor
Licensed Professional Counselor, State of NJ
Certified ScreamFree Marriage and Parent Facilitator
Postpartum Specialist
Professorial Duties
15 years experience teaching a wide array of undergraduate psychology courses at the following colleges: Rowan College of Gloucester County, Salem Community College, Wilmington University and Rowan University