Mario J. Passaro

Mario J. Passaro, LCSW-R, is a licensed clinical social worker, clinical supervisor, author, and developer of the Cognitive Distance Framework. He serves as Chief Clinical Officer at Alssaro Counseling Services, PLLC, a bilingual and bicultural outpatient mental health clinic in New Rochelle, New York.

His clinical and theoretical work focuses on trauma, emotion, defensive capture, symbolic objectification, and the restoration of reflective space in psychotherapy. Drawing from years of direct clinical practice, supervision, and program leadership, Passaro develops practical models that help therapists understand how clients become overwhelmed by emotionally charged experience and how treatment can restore enough distance for reflection, integration, and change.

His ongoing theoretical work includes the Adaptive Action Model, the Internalized Relational Model, and the Glass Box Theory, which examine the relationship between emotion, trauma, relational experience, symbolic distance, and clinical change. Restoring Cognitive Distance is his therapist-facing workbook introducing the Cognitive Distance Framework as a structured clinical model for working with traumatic, relational, and threat-related material that has become too close, immersive, or overwhelming to hold.