Ivona Mladina, MA psych.
She graduated from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb in 2009 with MA degree in psychology. In 2017, she completed a five-year training course for a clinical psychotherapist at the Institute for Integrative Gestalt Psychotherapy in Würzburg, and in 2022, with the establishment of the Croatian Chamber of Psychotherapists, she received the title of licensed psychotherapist in the Republic of Croatia. She is currently attending the postgraduate specialist study program in clinical psychology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb.
After completing her studies, she interned at the Vrapče Psychiatric Clinic, and passing the professional exam in 2010, she worked for two years in the field of psychological diagnostics and counseling at the Ministry of Justice. Afterwards, she was employed in the private sector, where she gained experience in organizational psychology, further improving her skills in diagnostics and counseling, as well as various methods of support and facilitation in the workplace, both individually and in groups. In 2014, she started her private psychological practice, where she still works today. She runs the practice with the vision of an accessible, approachable, and available platform for the development and support of psychological health in individuals, organizations, and communities. Since then, she has provided psychological counseling and psychotherapy services to individuals with a wide variety of difficulties in overall functioning, as well as couples and families.
Her special professional interest is working with people with difficulties from the spectrum of anxiety and mood disorders, working through/with psychological (developmental, identity) crises and major life events, grieving processes, psychological support during health crises, recovery from illness and changes in health behaviors, working with chronic pain, assisting people with difficulties due to substance abuse, and eating disorders. In addition to individuals, she is also interested in working with communities as agents of psychological health, focusing on destigmatizing psychological functioning difficulties, reducing discrimination, developing mental health services, and raising awareness of the role of external stressors and the social and interpersonal aspects in the development of mental health problems in individuals.
From 2018 to the present, she has been actively involved in NGO sector, working in the field of health protection and prevention and social work. She works with patient groups of people with addiction and other mental health difficulties as an expert, program associate and project manager. She has participated in many and managed social and work reintegration projects, as well as advocacy projects for the development of comprehensive recovery services for people with the most complex mental health difficulties. In addition, she was responsible for research activities (addiction prevention, expert attitudes towards the employment of people with mental health difficulties), counseling and psychotherapy for people with mental health problems and their families, and managing an assisted living community for people treated for addiction. In 2024, she worked as a psychologist in non-institutional care for people with mental health difficulties in Rijeka.
She is in continuous training as a psychotherapist at the Istituto di Gestalt HCC Italy (Advanced international training: A Gestalt Therapy Field Approach to Development and Psychopathology (2022- today); Gestalt Therapy in Action: The therapist as a political agent – Online Program Series (2024). She attended trainings in partner psychotherapy, a cycle of education in ART psychotherapy techniques, completed the 101 level of education in Transactional Analysis (psychotherapy) and other shorter educational and experiential workshops and trainings (socially specific groups of patients, basics of online psychotherapy, process work, projective techniques, etc.). She is also in a continuous educuation in psychological diagnostics.
She is the author of various professional and educational publications, and an organizer, moderator and participant in conferences, roundtables and educations for experts and the public.
She is a member of the Croatian Psychological Chamber, the Croatian Chamber of Psychotherapists and the Gestalt Society for Integrative Psychotherapists in Croatia.
