President Jonathan J. Sanford, Ph.D. | University of Dallas website

Dr. Alexandra Marcotte, a licensed psychologist and University of Dallas alumna, is recognized for her work in emotionally focused therapy and her commitment to integrating faith into clinical psychology. She and her husband, Dr. Jonathan Marcotte, operate Sacred Ground Psychotherapy, a Catholic therapy clinic serving adults and couples in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and across the country.

“Our mission has been wholehearted healing and connection throughout the world by creating a space where people can feel vulnerable and loved at the same time,” Marcotte said. She explained that this mission is realized by “blending the neuroscience of bonding with actionable, evidence-based interventions, creating healing change that reveals God's love most profoundly in places of pain.”

Marcotte graduated from the University of Dallas in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology before earning her advanced degrees in clinical psychology. After starting Sacred Ground Psychotherapy in Lincoln, Nebraska in 2019, she returned to Texas with her family to be closer to relatives. “That sense of coming home not only brought us family community,” she said, “but a deeper sense of connection even to my UD roots.”

The clinic is now based in Keller, Texas. Marcotte's expertise includes helping couples and individuals repair relationships. She also speaks at workshops, colleges, retreats, and conferences nationwide. Her presentations have reached organizations such as the Catholic Psychotherapy Association, Catholic Campus Ministers Association, and SEEK conference organized by Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS).

Recently returning from Chicago after speaking at a symposium on faith integration, Marcotte described her interest in exploring connections between psychology, neuroscience, theology, and philosophy. “I help reflect back where we can find God's face in the nooks and crannies of the bonding science,” she said. “to help make the invisible reality of His love visible in a way that makes it actionable in our closest relationships and communities.”

Faith plays an important role in her practice. “If I’m going to come alongside people, it has to be in a way that’s comprehensive. And faith is a very important part of that. It is woven into the healing process…it goes to a more transcendent level of connection and way of being in the world.”

Marcotte credits her time at University of Dallas for influencing both her professional path and approach to integrating faith within her clinic’s environment: “There was something about the Catholic identity of UD that was really formative,” she said. “It is partly what inspired me to continue on the path of staying within a Catholic environment.”

She also believes that UDallas provided strong academic preparation for graduate study through its core curriculum: “Because of UD’s core curriculum and because of the liberal arts education, it did cultivate in me looking at things from multiple vantage points as a way to hold parts of a whole,” Marcotte said.

The university’s educational approach encouraged resilience throughout challenges faced during her career: “UD cultivated in me a love of learning, and the process of learning...allowing for mistakes...still growing...and trying again.”

This mindset supported Marcotte through seven years required for certification in Emotionally Focused Therapy—a model considered highly effective for treating relationship distress—and continues as part of Sacred Ground Psychotherapy's ongoing training efforts for clinicians.

“We choose to keep getting better for our clients,” Marcotte noted. “so that every time they see us, we are better than the last time they saw us. It’s for them...so that they don't have to work as hard and they just get taken care of.”

For Marcotte, client progress remains central: “Watching couples fall in love again and again is the best part of my job...watching love click back into their eyes is one of my favorite things.” She added: “I could do this job all day.”