Clinical psychologist, music therapist and musician. Founder of Calmia.
Current positions
- Founder, director and therapist at Calmia, Quito, Ecuador.
- Full-time professor at Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ): Self-Knowledge (Liberal Arts) and Music Therapy (Clinical Psychology); soon also The Japanese Miracle (with JICA) and Ethics and Behavior (School of Medicine).
- Founder and president of the Ecuadorian Music Therapy Association (AEM).
- Ecuador’s delegate and coordinator of the Regulatory Frameworks Commission of the Latin American Music Therapy Committee (CLAM).
- Clinical placement supervisor for the Master’s in Music Therapy at Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR).
- Scientific committee member and peer reviewer for the Spanish music therapy journal Mi Sostenido.
Background
Mario Ayabaca is Ecuador’s first Master’s-level music therapist with professional training in both clinical psychology and musical arts. He graduated as a clinical psychologist from the Central University of Ecuador in 2013 and from the Franz Liszt Conservatory of Music in 2017, specializing in classical voice and classical guitar.
In 2018 he received USFQ’s artistic excellence scholarship, and in 2023 he graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Musical Arts (major in popular voice performance, minor in composition and arranging). That same year he earned his Master’s in Music Therapy from UNIR, Spain, and was invited to publish his thesis research, Academic Stress and Music Therapy in Ecuador, in the journal Mi Sostenido.
In August 2023 he founded Calmia, a mental health and music therapy center with a humanistic and integrative approach. Since 2023 he has been part of CLAM’s Regulatory Frameworks Commission and is a co-author of its first report on the regulation of music therapy in Latin America. His degrees are registered with SENESCYT, Ecuador’s higher education authority.
For colleagues and institutions
Mario offers online clinical supervision for music therapists and psychologists, as well as lectures, workshops and training on music therapy and mental health for universities, hospitals and organizations. See his media appearances (in Spanish).
Online therapy in English · Versión en español: Mario Ayabaca