About Maxine Skuba
Professional Experience
For over thirty years I have worked as a professional counselor and therapist. With a background in psychology and counseling, plus my own extended questing to find my own niche, I help clients gain clarity in their life direction and purpose.
My particular interest and specialty is career counseling, partly because I grew up in a rural area of Maine at a time when there were few career choices for either schooled or unschooled job seekers. I soon realized that lack of choice can be an external reality, as in a rural and poor geographical area, or an internal reality, as when a person does not see his or her own capabilities and choices.
I have been practicing career counseling/coaching for the past twenty years in the Dayton and Columbus areas. I am a Licensed Professional Counselor with the State of Ohio, and I have taught all age groups, including Life/Work Planning classes at Wright State University, Clark State University, and Antioch College/ McGregor.
I earned a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Illinois and a M.S in Counseling from Wright State University in Dayton, OH. I have studied with Richard Bolles, author of What Color is Your Parachute. In addition, I have completed relevant graduate-level coursework at Ohio State University. I have experienced my own questing in the world of work through various employments, including 7 years of crisis counseling, teaching all-age groups, tornado recovery (Xenia, Ohio), an herb and spice store owner, and a fabric artist.
I can help you realize your potential in the realm of work and more.
Philosophy
“Take a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
–Confucious
"I also became aware that happiness in the sense I have described does matter. I was as sure as that I was alive, that happiness not only needs no justification, but that it is also the only final test of whether what I am doing is right for me."
—Joanna Field
What is right about me?
When a client says, “I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up,” or “I don’t know what to do next,” the first place to start is with the question, “What is right about me?” When we define those strengths that we don’t recognize or can’t name, we take a huge step in our self-awareness and are better able to turn in the right direction.
When a person is in the wrong “spot” (read job or career), their self-esteem is affected adversely by the job’s expectations and its environment. I have worked with clients who have been fired because they wanted to use the skills that came easily and which they enjoyed using, but were not appreciated nor valued by their supervisors.
"Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half a man’s hunger." —Kahlil Gibran
Publications by
Maxine Skuba
Workbooks:
Finding Your Right Livelihood: A Spiritual Guide for Finding Your Spot in the World of Work
Poetry:
Chai with Froth, 2019
The Look of Romance, 2019
Jumping Into Stars, Maxima Publications, 2003.
Disclosure Statement
Maxine E. Skuba, MS
LPC License #C-0003773
Licensed through the Ohio State Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapist Board.
Formal Professional Education
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; PhD studies 1995
Wright State University, Fairborn, OH; M.S., 1974
University of Illinois, Chicago Circle; B.S., 1969
Areas of Competence
Diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders, career counseling, personal and social counseling, and mental health counseling.
The Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapist Board
50 West Broad Street, Suite 1075, Columbus, OH 45215-5919 • tel (614) 466-0912 • fax (614) 728-7790 • www.cswmft.ohio.gov
Disclosure required by the Ohio State Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapist Board, which regulates all licensed and registered Mental Health Counselors, Social Workers, and Marriage and Family Therapists.