Michael Cicalese, M.S.

Michael is a National Certified Counselor (NCC) and Licensed Mental Health Counselor. Michael brings a humanistic touch to evidence-based approaches in helping clients of all ages and stages across the lifespan and with a wide range of presenting concerns. Throughout the therapeutic process, Michael aims not only to alleviate suffering and anxiety, but also to promote a greater sense of flourishing and wellbeing. 

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Michael takes pride in his ability to balance warmth and intelligence in his clinical work, which he believes is the result of his distinctive academic and professional journey. He graduated, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Stetson University, with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. As an undergraduate, he immersed himself in the works of those philosophers, ancient and modern, whose theories and methods he understood to be therapeutic. “A philosopher’s argument is empty,” Epicurus wrote millennia ago, “if it does not therapeutically treat human suffering.” Michael’s studies culminated in a senior thesis in which he argued that the very difficulty of doing philosophy can be therapeutic. Upon completing this thesis, Michael realized that his true calling was to become a psychotherapist.

 

Michael holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Lynn University. Additionally, he completed a two year postgraduate training mentoring under a team of Psychologists to hone his clinical skills. He fulfilled the practicum and internship phase of his education at the Faulk Center for Counseling in Boca Raton, where he worked with clients with diverse clinical presentations, led a long-term support group for widows and widowers, and engaged in the center’s Senior Outreach Support (SOS) program. In addition to Michael's specialties in grief and loss, and senior support, he also has an appreciation of  work with LGBTQ+.

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In his therapeutic work, Michael integrates and coordinates evidence-based approaches (such as ACT, CBT, and DBT) from within a philosophically informed, existential-humanistic framework. This enables Michael to use all that he has learned as a student of philosophy and as a mental health counselor to provide a counseling experience that is as richly humanistic as it is scientifically informed. Michael strives to provide a space in which clients feel empowered to embrace their full humanity in all its fragility and finitude, so that they can face life—and death—with a renewed and enduring sense of wonder and well-being.