Mario Salem, NP

Mario Salem is a Board-Certified Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner who provides approachable, practical, and individualized care. Direct yet compassionate, Mario wants clients to feel comfortable being themselves and speaking openly about what they are experiencing without fear of judgment. His goal is for care to feel collaborative—a genuine conversation focused on understanding what is happening, what the client wants to change, and how they can realistically move forward.

Mario grew up in the Detroit area in a Middle Eastern and Chaldean family. From an early age, he saw how family, culture, religion, identity, and community can influence the way people understand and talk about mental health. He recognizes that in some families and cultures, people may feel expected to keep struggles to themselves, push through difficult experiences, or worry about being judged for seeking support. These experiences helped shape Mario's commitment to making mental health care feel more approachable and culturally responsive.

Mario brings an extensive nursing background to his work as a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. Before becoming a nurse practitioner, he spent many years as a registered nurse, including extensive experience as a travel nurse. Working in different parts of the country, clinical environments, and communities exposed him to people from a wide range of backgrounds and lifestyles. Those experiences taught him the importance of remaining adaptable and approaching each person as an individual rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.

Mario was drawn to mental health by a longstanding curiosity about why people think, feel, and respond to situations the way they do. Through nursing, he also witnessed how closely mental well-being can be connected to physical health, relationships, work, confidence, and overall quality of life. He became especially interested in helping people who may have struggled for years without feeling heard or who have felt uncomfortable asking for support.

His approach is collaborative, practical, culturally responsive, and evidence-based. Mario primarily works with adults experiencing concerns such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, mood-related challenges, stress, and life transitions. He incorporates supportive strategies and principles from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) when appropriate. He also looks beyond symptoms to understand how relationships, work, sleep, physical health, stress, culture, family expectations, and daily habits may be influencing a client's well-being.

Mario believes clients should understand and participate in their care. He encourages questions, honest conversations, and shared decision-making so that clients feel involved rather than feeling that decisions are simply being made for them. What continues to motivate him is seeing people regain confidence, function more comfortably in their everyday lives, and begin to feel more like themselves again.
Mario is bilingual in Arabic and Chaldean and welcomes adults from different cultures, identities, backgrounds, and life experiences. He wants clients to know they do not need to have everything figured out before seeking support. They can simply begin with what is bothering them, what they would like to improve, and work forward from there together.

Outside of work, Mario enjoys fitness and believes physical and mental wellness are closely connected. He also enjoys traveling, exploring new cities and restaurants, attending concerts and comedy shows, and spending time with friends and family. Naturally social and goal-oriented, he enjoys meeting people from different backgrounds and is usually working toward a new personal, professional, or fitness goal.