Rivers Collective
Experience
Therapy
María Rivera LCSW
HI, I’M MARIA RIVERA
I believe that healing moves.
That, no matter how stuck, heavy, or silenced life has made you feel, there is always a way forward. Rivers Collective Experience was built on that belief. That healing finds its way, and we all deserve it.
I am a Latina, bilingual, native Spanish speaking therapist. I work with adolescents, older adults and elders. My clients learn that their voice, their story, and their identity were never meant to be silenced that, like a river, they were always meant to move forward.
My work is rooted in the belief that culture, community, and lived experience are not background details: they are central to who we are and how we heal. Cultural humility is the foundation everything else is built on.
I draw from trauma-informed, humanistic, and attachment based approaches not as rigid formulas, but as flexible tools adapted to who you are and what you need. Together we explore the logs in the river, blocking your ability to move forward, and gently and honestly we work to clear them. Healing begins with understanding not just what you are feeling, but where you feel it in your body, where it comes from and why it stays.
Much of my work centers on the stories we carry: the deeply held beliefs about ourselves shaped by painful experiences. Together we examine and gently challenge the narratives that no longer serve you, building new ones rooted in truth, worthiness, and self compassion.
Education is a cornerstone of my practice. I want you to leave our sessions with real, practical tools not just insight, but something tangible you can reach for on your own terms, whenever you need it. I take time to understand how you learn best, whether through conversation, visual aids, or something else entirely because the most useful tool is one that actually works for you.
Whether you have been thinking about therapy for years or just found this page tonight, you belong here.
NY State Licensed Clinical Social Worker
NYU Silver School of Social Work Class of 2020 Graduate
MY VALUES
Rivers: A river is always moving, always finding its way forward even around obstacles, even through resistance. It carves through rock not by force but by showing up, consistently, over time. It nourishes everything along its banks. For the people I work with those navigating some of life's heaviest seasons the river is you. Always moving, always becoming, never truly stuck.
Collective: Healing does not happen in isolation. Even in a one-on-one therapy room, there is a shared humanity at work. You carry your family, your culture, your community, and your history into every session and all of it is welcome here. The therapeutic relationship itself is a collective act built on trust, honesty, and the belief that you don’t have to carry any of this alone.
Experience: Therapy is not just a service. It is something you go through, something that changes you from the inside out. It is embodied, felt, and lived. Calling it an experience is intentional because what happens in this space is not just talk. It is something you carry with you long after the session.
