Darlene Viggiano, Ph.D., is not one to let her personal challenges overwhelm her. Instead, she has channeled them into becoming the therapist, educator, and advocate she is today. Her life journey has been one of transformation, resilience, and a commitment to empowering others. Having graduated from Saybrook University with a Ph.D. in Psychology, she draws on her unique blend of experiences, academic training, and spiritual insight to guide others through life’s complexities.

Growing up in Brooklyn and New Jersey, Dr. Viggiano’s early years were marked by activism and a keen awareness of social justice issues.

“I grew up in the ’60s, so I was big into kids' rights,” Dr. Viggiano says. “I was big into women's rights. I was big into civil rights. I was big against the Vietnam War.”

Her cousin’s death in Vietnam reinforced her commitment to principles over blind patriotism. “I always knew that if it ever became a question between my principles and my country, my principles would come first,” she says.

Dr. Viggiano’s passion for learning extended to languages. She became proficient in Spanish, Japanese, and French, sparking an early interest in diplomacy and international work. After college, those skills led her to Japan, where she spent a year immersing herself in Japanese culture. The experience opened her eyes to global perspectives and laid the groundwork for her later work.

In the following years, Dr. Viggiano suffered a number of difficulties and setbacks in her personal life. Though traumatic, these experiences led to evolution in her career. Dr. Viggiano experienced the transformative power of therapy, which not only helped her realize who she believes herself to be but also informed some of her later work.

“My divorce came out of the miscarriage that I had; we had different ways of processing it,” Dr. Viggiano says. “I wrote ‘Carrying On,’a workbook for pregnancy loss,to help me process, because at that time, there were plenty of workbooks on grief but none for miscarriages. I had to write my own.”

This period of upheaval became a catalyst for profound self-discovery during which Dr. Viggiano found her championing of social justice issues intersecting with new work in therapy.

“My work in social justice informs my spirituality, my politics, everything,” she says.

Seeking a program aligned with her humanistic values, Dr. Viggiano pursued a Ph.D. in Psychology at Saybrook University. She appreciated the university’s emphasis on humanistic, transpersonal, and Jungian approaches. Her coursework took on a deeper meaning as she began her dissertation writing process during a time when her father’s health was in decline.

“The two experiences, my dissertation writing process and my father dying, melded together,” Dr. Viggiano says. “What Saybrook afforded me was the opportunity to put a scientific, rigorous grounding beneath all of the spiritual synchronicities that came out of my own therapy.”

This integration of science and spirituality became a hallmark of her therapeutic approach.

Dr. Viggiano’s academic work extended beyond her dissertation, with publications and contributions in areas such trauma, sexual violence, and economic abuse. These specializations were informed by her own experiences, and “using [her] life experience to help others with their life experience” became a guiding principle in her work.

Dr. Viggiano’s approach to therapy is deeply personal and transparent, embracing a more humanistic, transpersonal style that encourages openness and connection with her clients. Her therapeutic style reflects her belief in empowerment. This ethos was reinforced by her Saybrook experience.

“I'm really grateful for my Saybrook background. Most Saybrook students are doing this study from their heart; they’re not just doing it to get a degree,” she says. “I encourage people to use their time at Saybrook to feed their soul as much as their career.”