About Marcia
A clinical psychologist and group psychotherapist, Marcia Nickow, Psy.D, CADC, CGP, designed and implemented an intensive group psychotherapy program in her downtown Chicago private practice at Working Sobriety Trauma and Addiction Recovery Center. Marcia leads 15 weekly ongoing process groups—men’s, women’s, multigender, professionals, artists/writers and clinical supervision groups; she also co-leads two couples groups. Her clinical interests include multi-generational recovery from addiction and developmental trauma; posttraumatic healing and thriving after community trauma; intergenerational and historical legacies of trauma and resilience; pedagogies of oppression; and anti-racist organizational transformation.
Marcia serves as group facilitator and consultant at F.A.C.E. Race Consulting LLC and as senior organizational and clinical advisor at SunCloud Health Residential and Outpatient Treatment Center. She conducts staff trainings, workshops and institutes at Haymarket Center and SunCloud. She has presented nationally and internationally on trauma (complex, intergenerational, historical, collective); the full spectrum of addictions and eating disorders; de-colonizing approaches to treatment; group dynamics and group processes; and more recently, on collective trauma including sequelae of the COVID-19 and racial violence pandemics.
With more than 30 years’ experience treating the full spectrum of addictions, eating disorders and trauma, Marcia has worked in inpatient, outpatient, halfway house, forensic, correctional, hospital, veterans’ hospital, social welfare, school, homeless and street outreach settings. Her earlier work as a journalist and a community organizer helped inspire her trauma-focused, multigenerational treatment model.
Marcia has taught addictions, trauma, group psychotherapy, social psychology, diversity studies and forensic psychology at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Co-author of A Group Therapist’s Guide to Process Addictions, Marcia also is a recipient of the Alonzo Award for Excellence from the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA) for her contributions to the scientific literature on psychodynamic group psychotherapy.
Marcia is co-chair of the Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma and Resilience Special Interest Group of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS). She formerly served on the boards of the Foundation for Advancing Mental Health, the Chicago Center for the Study of Groups and Organizations, the Illinois (now Great Lakes) Group Psychotherapy Society, and Serenity Academy Chicago. She is currently working on a team convened by AGPA’s Science to Service Task Force to draft detailed guidelines for anti-racist group therapy practice.
