REBECCA MARCELINA GIMENO, PhD
Dr. Rebecca Marcelina Gimeno is a licensed clinical psychologist and a graduate student of thanatology. She draws upon psychoanalytic, existential-phenomenological, expressive arts, and feminist traditions in psychology. Dr. Gimeno offers psychotherapy to adults who come to her expressing various concerns related to reproductive difficulties, existential malaise, grief, melancholy, and creative blocks. She completed an MA at the University of West Georgia, and later received an MA and PhD at Duquesne University. Dr. Gimeno completed her pre-doctoral internship and post-doctoral fellowship at The Danielsen Institute in Boston, Massachusetts.
The immersive experience of making art, or creative writing, is one way of confronting and bringing to light the cast off, and enigmatic aspects of, our lives. Moreover, art provides us with a container, holding our varied experiences, however painful, strange, or feared.
In her spare time, Dr. Gimeno enjoys her creative pursuits, beachcombing, and reading. She also enjoys spending time with her parents, Linda and José, and with her fiancé, fellow psychologist, Kai
Bartering with the Earth: Bone Baby
(mixed media photography,
13MP. 3605 x 3605. 2.6 MB, 25x25 inches)
This mixed media photography collage is part of an ongoing series that began in 2019. Deeply rooted in personal and intergenerational history, this image aims to illuminate the very complex experiences of embodied life/death,present absences, and the healing power of ritual. My own time in the underworld was somehow both brief and unending. Death, desire, and impossibility encircled me. My vision for this art series is to capture such moments of loss, haunting, and healing. I also strive to illuminate experiences often left in the shadows, and to create from spaces of loss. The photographs featured in this collage depict multiple realities and contradictions–experiences common to those in mourning. The lines between waking life and dream life become blurred. The majority of these photographs, featuring the evocative and melancholic New England coastline, were taken over the span of nine months, a time associated with gestation and birth. For many women, experiences of pregnancy loss, and reproductive difficulties, are often spoken in whispers, kept close to the heart, and marked by alienation, grief, and despair. Art holds the power to honor experience, create collective holding, and to represent very painful aspects of human existence. Most of all, I want women to feel less alone in their experiences, whatever those experiences may be.