Welcome!

Our story

Equibliss Psychotherapy was founded in 2013 by Dr. Ioana Marcus as a way to integrate her passion for working with clients with eating disorders and trauma, with the love for horses. Trained in a myriad of modalities and therapeutic approaches (see continuing education), Ioana has found that the experiential nature of the work with the horses creates a unique opportunity for awareness of one’s own emotions and learning new ways to learn to live more fully, and authentically in relationships with others and our natural environment.

Ioana has continued to take a collaborative approach, and worked with SPIRIT Open Equestrian and Northern Virginia Therapeutic Riding Program, both nonprofits focused on the PATH model of therapeutic work with horses. She continued welcoming various other community organizations to experience the horses through various grants, including The Friends of Guest House, Virginia Hospital Center - Breast Cancer support groups, INOVA medical and mental health providers support group, and more.

While still teaching full time at the University, Ioana was able to teach her graduate students about equine facilitated therapy and many of her students were inspired and transformed by the experiential nature of this work. Ioana continued to envision a community to share the horses with other practitioners and more clients.

In 2020, Ioana expanded her vision of Equibliss psychotherapy to an inclusive and collaborative community of psychotherapists practicing equine facilitated therapy whilst integrating their own specialties, such as Qi-Gong, relational counseling, grief counseling, adolescents with mood disorders, and more. It’s a supportive community that understands the positive impact of the horses as teachers and of our natural environment as our interconnected playground. For more information on each of our amazing team members, please see our team page.

Equibliss’ vision doesn’t stop here. Ioana created a non-profit, Human Equine And Relational Therapy (HEART) Space Fund, to bridge the gap in offering mental health services, specifically equine facilitated psychotherapy to immigrants, refugees, and foster care children and families.