My name is Marica (and yes, I have a brother named Ivica, and yes, we were named after a fairy tale). I am an artist, theatre director, drama educator, body psychotherapy counselor, family constellations facilitator, educator, and I also work with energy healing, dance and movement, and sexuality healing. Above all, I am the mother of two wonderful sons and a woman on her own journey of healing, growth, and freedom.

In my work, I draw on years of knowledge and experience working with people, bringing together the arts from which I come (theatre, puppetry, dance, music, film) with embodied expression and psychotherapy. Today, I like to say that art and therapy are the two legs on which I walk through the world, and this is what I offer—with joy, humility, and deep gratitude—to every Soul that reveals to me along the way, whether in individual sessions, therapy, workshops, lectures, or chance encounters.

I was born in Split, Croatia, in 1979, and my life journey began in a family with deaf parents—wonderful people who, like all loving parents, did everything they could to raise my brother and me to be happy. Yet their physical limitations left deep marks on my childhood, which was deprived of much of its joy and carefree innocence, because from a very young age I became my parents’ interpreter—their ears.

As a little girl, I watched the evening news and translated words and events that I barely understood myself. I accompanied my parents to public institutions and had to awkwardly explain, with the limited knowledge and life experience of a child, what the clerk behind the counter had said. At the same time, I had to understand what my parents were trying to “tell” me so I could explain to that same clerk why we were there. I was so small and so powerless.

The feeling that I was not good enough, that I could not explain well enough, that I could not help my beloved parents enough, that there were no words they could truly understand—has stayed with me ever since. You see, I believed it was my fault—that I was somehow responsible for the fact that my parents could not communicate with the rest of the world and that the world could not understand them. In my childlike way, I decided that I would never again feel that helplessness, worthlessness and inadequacy. I chose to learn. I threw myself into knowledge, school, and books, becoming a flawless straight-A student.

I perfected my inner scanner. By observing the world and the people around me, I learned exactly who I needed to be in order to be accepted. I adapted. I became a chameleon. I could become whatever anyone wanted me to be. Along the way, I lost piece after piece of myself. When it came time for university, I could have enrolled in any program I wanted. Instead, I chose the one that did not depend on grades, but on who I was.

On an unconscious level, I was searching for a way to express myself so that my parents could understand me. I was searching for a new language. My chameleon spirit led me to study Theatre Directing and Radio Production at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, but it surrendered when faced with the challenge of creating authentic art. Authentic? What does that mean? Spontaneous? I don’t understand. Just tell me exactly what you need, what the rules are, what the framework is, and I will fulfill it! But no. That freedom suffocated me. I graduated, began directing theatre productions, and received disastrous reviews. Humiliating. How could it have been otherwise? I could not fully give myself because I did not even know who I was.

That was the beginning of my Scorpio-like search for deeper meaning, for answers to the questions of who I am and why I am here. Several years of wandering followed. I created less and less of my own artistic work—running away from the fear of more criticism—and immersed myself in production and organization instead. I concluded that I was not creative enough, not authentic enough, not truly myself. I crossed myself off the list of artists. As a single mother of two children, survival came first. What room was there for creation when work and survival demanded everything?

And yet, no matter how life repeatedly knocked me down in its regular seven-year cycles, even with two children to raise, I kept getting back up and moving forward, refusing to abandon my dreams. Then dance entered my life, and I surrendered to it. Inspired by a dream of creating a permaculture-based artistic retreat on the island of Vis, I founded an artistic organization called BESA Theatre, naming it after the boat with which the legendary Croatian sailor Joža Horvat sailed around the world when everyone told him he would fail. Stubborn as he was, he succeeded, of course. Inspired by his story, I gathered my boys and moved to Vis. After several years there, I finally realized that the problem was not other people—it was me. Stubborn me. I was chronically exhausted. I never had enough time for all my responsibilities. I never had financial security. Every partner I was with eventually left.

So I went to therapy and enrolled in CIR (Centre for Integrative Development). I chose CIR because I understood the language spoken there. And that language was the body. Can you see the irony? The body. Hands. Feet. Movement. Not words. And that was a language I had known since childhood. There, deep inside myself, without anyone needing to explain complex psychology or theories of the human psyche and body, I encountered countless characters from my inner drama. I wrote scene after scene in which they collided and shattered one another. I filled pages with tragedies more intense than Greek tragedies. I opened Pandora’s box and faced everything that emerged. And it was brutal. Like a cataclysm after Hiroshima. Scorched earth without a trace of life. As far as the eye can see—smoke and ashes. The sky has disappeared. And a little girl, with tangled brown hair and soot-stained cheeks, stands barefoot, staring at the devastation. Frozen. Alone.

On my 40th birthday, I celebrated my return to my hometown of Split with the premiere of the film Ponad Pučinam (2019). Returning to the city also brought me back to drama education and the artistic workshops I had always loved leading. In the meantime, I became a body psychotherapy counselor and educator, teaching future therapists at the very school where I had trained. Family constellations, energy work, and education in sexuality through shamanic and spiritual practices broadened my horizons and helped answer the questions of who I am and why I am here.

I am a Traveler. I am here to help and support others through their imperfections, pain, sorrow, and wounds. I am ready to listen, to remain silent when needed, and to walk beside another soul until they are ready to set sail on the open sea in their own vessel, creating a life that is natural, authentic, and uniquely their own. I carry the message that everything originates from Creation, and that life is not only struggle, suffering, and pain. It can also be joy and pleasure. And that we adults are allowed to play, too.

BESA comes from the Albanian tradition and means a sacred word, a vow, a promise that cannot be broken. For me, it represents a commitment to honesty, presence, integrity, and mutual trust.

• 2021 – Present
  Educator at CIR INTP (Centre for Integrative Development – Institute of Body Psychotherapy), Sarajevo and Split
  Teaching and lecturing, facilitating group therapy processes and experiential learning programs.

• 2019 – Present
  Private Psychotherapy Practice
  Providing individual counseling and body psychotherapy sessions, and facilitating artistic, therapeutic, and intensive personal development workshops.

• 2003 – Present
  Professional Theatre Director and Drama Educator
  Leading artistic workshops and projects, directing theatre productions, and managing the professional production of artistic works.

• 2013 – 2024
  Lecturer, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split
  Department of Early Childhood Education
  Teaching courses in the fields of performing arts and puppetry.

2025 – Present
Somatic Experiencing® (SE) – professional training for working with the physical and psychological symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma. Completed the first year (Beginning Level).
Somatic Experiencing Art International

2025 – 2026
TRE® (Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises) – Certified Provider Training.
TRE Global Certification Program

2022 – 2025
Completed advanced training in the field of sexuality through ISTA (International School of Temple Arts); ISTA PT Graduate.
International School of Temple Arts (ISTA)

2022 – 2023
Training in Psychotherapy Propedeutics, Amigdala Center.
Amigdala Center

2022 – 2023
Training in Family and Systemic Constellation Work, led by Svjetlana Bukovec. https://konstelacije.net/

2021 – 2022
Small School of Energy Work, led by Lidija Kaštelančić, focused on healing techniques inspired by the work of Barbara Brennan.

2019 – 2022
Centre for Integrative Development (CIR) – Advanced therapeutic training in the development and integration of personal power, leadership, and sexuality, Zagreb.
Centre for Integrative Development (CIR)

2016 – 2019
Centre for Integrative Development (CIR) – Professional training in Integrative Body-Oriented Psychotherapy, Zagreb.
Centre for Integrative Development (CIR)

1999 – 2006
Master’s Degree in Theatre Directing and Radio Production, Academy of Dramatic Art, University of Zagreb.
Academy of Dramatic Art, University of Zagreb