welcome
welcome
YOUR PEACE OF MIND
PSYCHOLOGY
YOUR PEACE OF MIND PSYCHOLOGY
Utrecht | Online
“Therapy helps transforming what hurts into an awakening. It turns stillness into movement. It turns fear into curiosity.”
– Melania Zampieri
“Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.”
services
Support Tailored to Your Journey
My range of therapy services is designed to meet you where you are, whether you’re seeking individual growth, improved relationships, or a convenient online option. Together, we’ll create a supportive and safe environment where you can explore challenges, build resilience, and find a path forward that feels right for you.
– Individual or Couples
– In-person or Online
– English or Italian
testimonials
Real Stories of Growth & Healing Through Therapy
“At the beginning, I was lost on a thick forest, where the trees were no other than my own thoughts, my preconceptions, the perception of myself and a depression I felt I could not see through, like a really dense fog. Melania came in with a flashlight to help me find the way through. She is kind, empathetic, motivating and a wonderful human being. Therapy is a process to be done together and Melania is an amazing partner in this journey of self discovery.”
“I can’t say enough about the positive impact Melania has had on my life. From my very first session, she created a safe, welcoming environment where I felt truly understood and supported. Through Melania’s insightful guidance, I’ve learned powerful tools for managing stress, overcoming challenges and traumas which has led me to understand myself on a deeper level. Melania offers compassionate, nonjudgmental support and brings a wealth of knowledge to every session. Therapy has genuinely transformed my outlook and my well-being, and I’m incredibly grateful for the difference Melania has made in my life. It has been the best investment I’ve made for myself and I would highly recommend Melania to anyone seeking meaningful, life-changing support.”
“I feel incredibly grateful to work with Melania. She makes me feel truly seen, and creates safety and connection where I have been able building self-esteem, emotional awareness, resilience, healthier communication skills, etc. While I initially sought therapy for anxiety and work-related stress, Melania has since supported and inspired me to make a major career and life change that I could never have achieved so soon or confidently without her support, guidance, and genuine care. I love her questions, attention to details, connections, humor, and the different approaches / perspectives she brings into our sessions. I look forward to our sessions so much and cannot thank her enough for being such a huge support in my life!”
“I first started seeing Melania eight years ago as a student, initially seeking help for stress, anxiety, and burnout. Over time, our sessions have grown to encompass nearly every aspect of my life. In the safe and supportive space she creates, Melania has helped me uncover and work through deep-rooted traumas, providing me with invaluable tools for clear communication, setting boundaries, and building resilience—skills I’ve now applied across many areas of my life.
Her warm, caring nature, attention to detail, and great sense of humor make even the hardest topics feel easy to talk about. Having her guidance through various stages of my life has been transformative and has helped me understand and know myself better than ever before. Despite moving away, I’ve continued working with her throughout the years, which speaks to the incredible impact she’s had on me. From her very first email, I felt I was in good hands, and I can fully recommend Melania to anyone seeking support, guidance, or meaningful change.”
“Working with Melania has been incredibly beneficial to my wellbeing and our sessions have become a part of my support system and my self care. She has helped me to work through anxiety and other issues in a way that is empowering and does not make me feel like a patient. Her approach is very human centric and holistic: taking into account the bigger picture, like our societal context and the very real pressures of life. She has helped me through difficult times in my life and she has helped and supported me to develop as a person and to make great progress in my life. I also feel supported in knowing that if needed Melania will be in contact with other health care providers, like the GP, regarding possible medications or other therapy related treatments you may want to do. “
“Melania has been instrumental to my mental and physical health from day 1. Her professionalism, listening skills and attention to details over the years has transformed my life. She has supported through understanding where I come from and how my experiences have shaped me. She helped me understand the root of my anxiety, work through my distorted body image and drive changes in my mindset towards growth. This is possible thanks to the safe, open, expectation-free and kind environment that Melania brings to ever session. I’ve come to look forward and cherish seeing Melania, whether it is for a hard, stressful session or a moment of peaceful reflection for self-growth. It’s now been 8 years that I see Melania two to three times a month and I simply cannot imagine my life without her continued expertise and support.”
“Sessions with Melania have been instrumental in gaining a deeper understanding of myself and managing my anxiety as well as indirectly uncovering my ADHD.
Now, therapy is providing me with the space and skills to reflect on how I process anxiety and emotions, when overwhelmed. When I was recently faced with a big life change, booking in an extra session with Melania to process things helped.
Melania is empathetic, understanding, and creates a safe environment for me to explore my challenges. I recommend her to anyone looking to improve their self-awareness and peace of mind.”
“I cannot express enough how transformative my experience with Melania has been. From our very first session, she provided a warm and welcoming environment that encouraged me to open up about my struggles and reflect on them without judgement. Melania possesses a unique ability to listen deeply and provide insights that have helped me understand myself better and gain better perspective. Her compassionate approach and expert guidance have empowered me to navigate challenges with a deeper sense of acceptance and courage. I have seen significant improvements in my mental well-being, and I am truly grateful for the support I have received.It has now been over four years of sessions with Melania, which have resulted in a continuous journey of growth and healing. Each session is thoughtfully tailored to address both present-day stressors and long standing trauma, which allows me to process and explore my thoughts and emotions safely under her guidance. The tools and strategies I’ve learned have not only helped me cope with immediate issues but have also equipped me for long-term resilience. I highly recommend Melania to anyone seeking a supportive and insightful therapist who genuinely cares about her clients’ well-being, and that can truly make a difference in their lives. “
“I started my sessions with Melania to regain my balance after an intense working and personal transition period. I am glad I did.
Throughout the last months, Melania helped me to face my struggles and to regain trust in myself. I can definitely say that she helped me to get to know myself better!
The atmosphere has been welcoming from the first session, with the right questions and the right tempo. Although most of our sessions have been online, it felt like being in front of each other which I find extremely powerful.
What I appreciate in our path together is that Melania supported me not only with effective therapy but also with my lifestyle. For example she gave me recommendations on books, podcasts and videos which helped me to find my balance and even build a healthier lifestyle.
I started our sessions often feeling a shaky floor under my feet and having troubles sleeping at night.
Thanks to the work together, I feel a complete different person, more aware of my strength and eager to face the challenges ahead with a smile.”
“Melania’s warmth, compassion, and genuine attentiveness made me feel safe and heard from the start. She provides space to share freely while gently guiding each session to explore, dive deep, and address core issues. Through her thoughtful approach, I’ve learned to navigate challenging times and significantly improve my self-awareness and self-esteem. I couldn’t be more grateful and wholeheartedly recommend Melania to anyone seeking a therapist who truly listens and empowers you to grow!”
“I have been working on my personal growth with Melania for 7 years now.
Seeking her help has profoundly transformed my life and helped me overcoming childhood trauma, building self esteem and loving myself, with a major positive impact on my personal and professional life.
During our sessions, Melania creates a safe and non-judgmental space, where it becomes very easy to express my thoughts and the way I feel. She is an active listener, whose insights help me to connect the dots, understand my behavioural patterns, and find ways to break them.
I feel very grateful for the support Melania has been giving me throughout these years, and I would warmly recommend her to anyone who wants to start a self-discovery journey or needs support through tough times.”
material
Tools to Help Your Journey
Explore a curated selection of insightful books and podcasts that inspire and educate. Whether you’re looking to expand your knowledge, or dive into new perspectives, this list offers a variety of recommendations across different approaches and topics.
- ADD
- ADHD
- Anxiety
- Attachment theory
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- Depression
- Emotions
- Misogyny
- Narcissism
- Psychoanalytical Diagnosis
- Transactional Analysis
- Trauma
There is increasing recognition of the prevalence of ADHD in adulthood, which is estimated to be around one percent in the general population. These people have often experienced lifelong underachievement; they feel misunderstood and have not received the help they need. Reflecting the growing awareness of this problem, ADHD in Adults provides a comprehensive account of the presentation of adulthood ADHD, its assessment and treatment.
An Introduction to Transactional Analysis introduces the theory and practice of Transactional Analysis (TA) which integrates cognitive behavioural and psychodynamic theories within a humanistic philosophy.
As Hallowell and Ratey point out, “attention deficit disorder” is a highly misleading description of an intriguing kind of mind. Original, charismatic, energetic, often brilliant, people with ADD have extraordinary talents and gifts embedded in their highly charged but easily distracted minds. Tailored expressly to ADD learning styles and attention spans, Delivered from Distraction provides accessible, engaging discussions of every aspect of the condition, from diagnosis to finding the proper treatment regime.
Ranging widely across the culture, from Harvey Weinstein and the Brett Kavanaugh hearings to “Cat Person”, Manne’s book shows how privileged men’s sense of entitlement—to sex, yes, but more insidiously to admiration, care, bodily autonomy, knowledge, and power—is a pervasive social problem with often devastating consequences.
Games People Play revolutionised our understanding of what really goes on during our most basic social interactions. We play games all the time–sexual games, marital games, power games with our bosses, and competitive games with our friends. Detailing status contests like the lethal couples combat like “If It Weren’t For You” and “Uproar,” to flirtation favourites like “The Stocking Game” and “Let’s You and Him Fight,” Dr. Berne exposes the secret ploys and unconscious manoeuvres that rule our intimate lives.
Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them. She charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny.
Her research overturns the widely held belief that emotions are housed in different parts of the brain and are universally expressed and recognized. Instead, she has shown that emotion is constructed in the moment, by core systems that interact across the whole brain, aided by a lifetime of learning. This new theory means that you play a much greater role in your emotional life than you ever thought.
For years BPD was difficult to describe, diagnose, and treat. Dr. Jerold J. Kreisman and health writer Hal Straus offer much-needed professional and refreshing advice, helping victims and their families to understand and cope with this troubling,shockingly widespread affliction.
Haig analyses how the societies we live in are increasingly making our minds ill, making it feel as though the way we live is engineered to make us unhappy.
This book is a practical guide to understanding personality, away from psychiatric terminology and labels. It presents a research-based model of six personality adaptations.
The “drama” of the gifted—i.e., sensitive, alert—child consists of his recognition at a very early age of his parents’ needs and of his adaptation to those needs. In the process, he learns to repress rather than to acknowledge his own intense feelings because they are unacceptable to his parents. This leads to emotional insecurity and loss of self, which are revealed in depression or concealed behind a facade of grandiosity. Alice Miller defines the ideal state of genuine vitality, of free access to the true self and to authentic individual feelings that have their roots in childhood, as “healthy narcissism.”
The author, psychoanalyst, explains major character types and demonstrates specific ways that understanding one’s individual personality structure. Guidelines are provided for developing a systematic yet flexible diagnostic formulation.
Like nearly one in five people, the author, Matt Haig suffers from depression. Matt’s frankness about his experiences is both inspiring to those who feel daunted by depression and illuminating to those who are mystified by it. His humor and encouragement never let us lose sight of hope.
This book challenges the fundamental principle of psychiatry which asserts that emotional and mental distress comes from within. It show that people are innately healthy but develop a pattern early in life based upon negative or positive influences of those around them.
You’ll learn where brains came from, how they’re structured (and why it matters), and how yours works in tandem with other brains to create everything you experience. Along the way, you’ll also learn to dismiss popular myths such as the idea of a “lizard brain” and the alleged battle between thoughts and emotions, or even between nature and nurture, to determine your behaviour.
The author show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He offers innovative paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity.
A psychoanalytical examination of childhood trauma and its debilitating effects. Using the experiences of her patients along with the biographical stories of literary giants such as Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and Marcel Proust, Miller shows how a child’s humiliation, impotence, and bottled rage will manifest itself as adult illness.
Written by a pioneer of child analysis, and illustrated by fascinating clinical pictures drawn from childhood and adolescence, it discusses those adaptive measures by which painful and unwanted feeling-states are kept at bay or made more bearable.Anna Freud’s arguments have a clarity and cogency reminiscent of her father’s and the work is remarkable undated. Nothing stands still, but The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense has unmistakably passed the test of time.
Russ Harris explains that the way most of us go about trying to find happiness ends up making us miserable, driving the epidemics of stress, anxiety, and depression. This empowering book presents the insights and techniques of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
Fictional book on the topics of depression and regrets. Nora has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?
Miller shares an intensely personal tone and themes of her best-loved work, arguing that only by embracing the truth of our past histories can any of us hope to be free of pain in the present. Miller’s vivid true stories reveal the perils of early-childhood mistreatment and the dangers of mindless obedience to parental will.
TA is a model for understanding human personality, relationships and communication. This book offers an extensive and updated overview of the model throughout the recent years.
This is a simple parable that reveals profound truths. It is an amusing and enlightening story of four characters who live in a “Maze” and look for “Cheese” to nourish them and make them happy. In the story, the characters are faced with unexpected change and resistance to it.