LauraMaery Gold

LauraMaery Gold (born 1959) is an American author and licensed marriage and family therapist noted for her numerous published works on subjects related to family functioning. She is the founder and director of The Relationship Institute, an organization devoted to educating couples and families in building emotional intimacy. She has been widely published in such diverse fields as marital communications, childhood education, personal technology, religion, and family financial planning. Several of her books have been translated into multiple languages. She has been a guest on a variety of national and local radio and television programs.

Early life
LauraMaery Gold was born in Seattle and attended Brigham Young University, where she studied family counseling and financial planning, and attended the University of Missouri graduate school of journalism. She also earned post-graduate degrees and certifications in law, personal finance, and marriage and family therapy from British and American universities. She earned her doctorate in counseling psychology from Regent University, writing her Ph.D. dissertation on the formation and use of principle-based dyadic communication 'Skripts'.

Career
LauraMaery Gold has had an extensive career as both an author and a therapist.

Journalism
She began her writing career in high school as columnist at the Kent (Washington) News Journal. During college she was the religion editor and business editor at the Provo, Utah Daily Herald. She was a freelance writer for the China Economic News, and was a bureau chief and editor for various tech publications throughout Asia. She was editor in chief of several Asian editions of PC World, Computerworld, and MacWorld magazines.

Her first published book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Excel (co-written with Dan Post), was published in 1995. Since that time, she's authored more than a dozen books on family and consumer topics.

Counseling
Her therapeutic work began in the mid 1980s with clients seeking financial counseling through a university counseling center. She later advised low-income clients through the Community Action Agency, mediated business disputes with the Better Business Bureau, and advised delegates to various youth programs administered through the YMCA in Utah and the Pacific Northwest. She did extensive volunteer work with various not-for-profit organizations, including the Recovery Help Line of the Seattle Crisis Clinic.

She later entered private practice with Allied Family Therapy, a marriage and family counseling clinic based in Renton, Washington. In 2015 she became director of The Relationship Institute, an organization that uses a martial arts metaphor to teach better communication to couples, groups, and corporate and organizational clients.

Personal life
LauraMaery Gold and her husband Dan Post are the parents of two daughters and five sons, and presently reside outside of Paris, France.