About Barbara
My mission is to foster healing and growth by guiding individuals of all ages to reconnect with their bodies, creative expression, and inherent sense of belonging. Through a holistic approach that integrates sensory awareness, movement, and relational repair, I strive to support transformative change, empowering each person to reclaim their authentic, fluid self and cultivate meaningful connections with others and the world around them.
The Body’s Language: Sensory Integration, Movement, and the Creative Self
From the moment we take our first breath, our bodies are in constant conversation—with gravity, with sensation, with rhythm, with one another. We do not just exist on this planet; we are of this planet. Every movement, every sensory experience, every relational exchange shapes the way we come to know ourselves, others, and the world around us. This is the foundation of belonging.
At the heart of my work is the understanding that development is a whole-body, whole-being process. How we move, how we orient to space, how we express ourselves through play, art, and gesture—these are not separate from our cognitive and emotional development but are woven into the very fabric of our becoming. From early motor development to the nuanced ways we communicate nonverbally in adulthood, these patterns shape how we relate to ourselves, to others, and to life itself.
And these patterns are not ours alone. They carry echoes of those who came before us. Ancestral and intergenerational imprints live in our gestures, our postures, our tendencies toward contraction or expansion. The way we reach, protect, and connect may be shaped not only by our personal history but by the embodied experiences of our lineage. In this way, healing and integration are not just individual endeavors—they ripple through the web of connection that binds past, present, and future.
Barbara Collier, LPC
Barbara is a highly experienced somatic trauma psychotherapist, certified Somatic Experiencing® (SE™) Practitioner, and certified Embodied Psychosexual Practitioner (EPSP™), dedicated to guiding individuals, families, and children toward trauma recovery support and self-discovery. With a compassionate and integrative approach, Barbara addresses the complexities of developmental, intergenerational, sexual, and social/historical trauma. Her expertise also extends to integrative touch and movement therapies, where she supports both humans - and whenever possible and appropriate - alongside the wisdom of animals, with a focus on complex physical health conditions and chronic pain.
Barbara is the co-founder of Equinimity Tucson, a nonprofit organization providing somatically based, trauma-informed services to underserved populations. As a group facilitator, she brings a unique blend of her background as an ICU nurse and her extensive specialization in trauma-informed care. Her calm, grounded presence is a hallmark of her work, enabling her to hold space for touching deeply sensitive, personal material and supporting transformative group experiences.
In addition to her clinical practice, Barbara has had the privilege of co-teaching and assisting alongside Dr. Peter A. Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing, on multiple occasions. She also served as an assistant in Somatic Experiencing International core training programs.
Barbara’s personal journey with sexual trauma recovery is deeply woven into her professional calling. She comes from a lineage of intergenerational and ancestral wounds—stories long buried, spoken only in whispers. Growing up neurodivergent, she often felt overwhelmed, masking her true self in search of safety. At 16 years of age, she left her home due to abuse, hoping to leave the pain behind and create a new life. Yet, as so many discover, leaving a place does not mean leaving the wounds—and often, the cycle continues.
For years, Barbara has dedicated herself to gathering the fragmented pieces of her soul—those she once believed were broken, lost, or beyond reach. Slowly, she came to realize that these pieces had always been within her. Her journey has been one of remembering: uncovering the inherent wholeness that exists in each of us, even amidst unspeakable trauma. She has lovingly turned toward the marginalized and exiled parts of herself, inviting them home with patience and care.
Barbara’s diligent work and life journey brought her to a new edge: the shift from merely surviving to truly thriving. After lovingly parting ways with her partner of 25 years, she embarked on a deeper dive into sexual trauma recovery. This phase of her journey has included intensive work with somatic sex educators and practitioners, cultivating an even more attuned and compassionate relationship with herself. Through this process, she embraces the fullness of her vitality and reclaims her sexual sovereignty.
Barbara’s connection to nature and animals has been a vital part of her wholeness. The natural world became a profound teacher, offering her a deep sense of belonging that is tangible, repeatable, and joyful. She believes that “the original relational wounding” stems from the separation of humans from nature, and by extension, from their own bodies and inherent wholeness.
Barbara is guided by the belief that there is a profound wholeness within every being—a vast, interconnected wisdom and aliveness that is always present, even in the face of trauma. In this wholeness lies the potential for reconnection, and sovereignty.
A Journey of Healing, Teaching, and Transformation
My path into somatic trauma work began long before I ever knew to call it that. Coming from a disorganized and chaotic family, I was left with many questions—questions about human development, resilience, and the intricate ways we grow, connect, and heal. This curiosity led me on a lifelong journey to find a comprehensive framework that could make sense of what I had witnessed and experienced.
In 1992, as a nursing student, I found myself on the front lines of AIDS prevention and intervention, working alongside medical teams and community responders to support those facing one of the most stigmatized and devastating epidemics of our time. That same year, I trained local first responders in forensic rape kit procedures, an experience that deepened my understanding of how trauma lodges itself in the body, often in ways words cannot fully express.
These early experiences planted the seed for what would become a lifelong dedication to embodied healing, relational repair, and the profound intelligence of the body. I became particularly drawn to the interplay between trauma, development, and the nervous system—how trauma imprints itself in the body, how early relational experiences shape regulation and resilience, and how healing requires more than cognitive insight; it requires deep, attuned presence.
Early Years: Bridging Somatics & Developmental Trauma
After my son’s birth in 1997, I pursued a master’s in counseling psychology, specializing in early childhood development. My interest in how early relationships and sensory experiences shape the nervous system led me to train in craniosacral therapy, which deepened my understanding of the body as a relational system.
In the early 2000s, I worked with traumatized children and families, specializing in autism and complex sensory challenges. I became Arizona’s only practitioner trained in Dr. Stanley Greenspan’s DIR/Floortime model. I also presented at the Southern Arizona Association for Play Therapy and trained educators at the Child-Parent Center, expanding the training to over 500 professionals.
I served on a child abuse prevention task force with Governor Janet Napolitano, advocating for somatic, relationship-centered trauma care. My work emphasizes the importance of co-regulated relationships in healing, and I remain passionate about the role of movement, sensory integration, and creative expression in lifelong development.
Early Development & Sensory Integration
My early work with infants, young children, and neurodivergent populations led me deep into the study of sensory integration and movement therapies. I sought to understand how early sensory experiences—touch, balance, spatial orientation—build the foundation for emotional regulation, relational safety, and embodied self-awareness. This led me to:
Dr. Stanley Greenspan’s DIR/Floortime Model, where I learned to attune to the sensory and relational world of children, supporting their ability to engage, communicate, and develop through play and movement.
Somatic-based play therapy, focusing on how rhythm, movement, and nonverbal communication support co-regulation and relational repair.
The neurological impact of sensory processing challenges—how disruptions in vestibular, proprioceptive, and interoceptive awareness can affect everything from coordination to emotional expression.
Training in movement-based therapeutic modalities, including Pilates, Spacial Dynamics, and structural integration (Tom Myers & Gil Hedley’s fascia studies)—exploring how the body holds and releases developmental and traumatic imprints over time.
Waldorf Collaborative Counseling, a three-year intensive where I integrated sensory and movement-based approaches into developmental therapy.
Expressive Arts Therapy, a multi-module intensive training through Southwest Expressive Arts facilitated by Dr Sandra Wortzel.
Sensory and movement integration is not only about supporting children in growing into their fullest selves but also about how we, as adults, find our way back home to ourselves. Trauma, conditioning, and modern disconnection can sever us from our most natural, fluid state of being. In my clinical work, I support clients in restoring their connection to their bodies and creative flow through movement, sensory exploration, and expressive arts.
Movement & Expressive Arts as a Pathway Home
Creativity, movement, and sensory play are not just for children—they are fundamental to our healing and wholeness at every stage of life.
Expressive arts therapy, which I have integrated into my work for years, allows the nervous system to find new patterns through image, color, and form—bypassing the limits of verbal processing.
The intersection of movement, sound, and somatic rhythm, exploring how voice, drumming, and embodied sound can restore lost aspects of self.
Communal creative practice, including grief rituals, movement-based storytelling, and nonverbal forms of connection.
Equine-assisted movement and sensory experiences, where the felt sense of another sentient being provides an externalized rhythm of safety and co-regulation.
The essence of all of this is belonging—to ourselves, to each other, and to the earth.
We are not separate from life; we are life moving through form. When we restore our full range of sensory experience, movement, and creative expression, we reclaim our place within the greater whole. Every person carries an innate creative flow that is uniquely theirs, waiting to be expressed.
This throughline—the way we communicate nonverbally, the way we find coherence within ourselves, the way we move, create, and relate—is the intersection of all my work. Whether through somatic trauma resolution, play therapy, sensory integration, movement-based healing, or communal ritual, the goal is always the same:
To help people come home to their bodies, to their creativity, to their belonging, and to the deep knowing that they are part of something vast, interconnected, and alive.
Somatic Touch
Touch is our first language after birth—a primal, wordless form of communication that speaks directly to the nervous system, to the heart, and to the soul. It is through touch that we first come to know ourselves: where we begin and end, what it feels like to be comforted, held, and met. We need enough attunement and enough care in a way that helps us make sense of ourselves and the world around us.
Touch has the potential to offer safety, belonging, and coherence. Its impact is shaped not just by technique, but by the quality of relationship. In this context, attuned touch becomes a sacred way of being with another: grounded, boundaried, and deeply human. It reminds us that healing is not about getting it right all the time—it’s about showing up with care, humility, and a willingness to listen through the hands.
Touch has long been an essential, though often misunderstood, aspect of somatic trauma resolution. In 2011, the State of Arizona lifted language that restricted psychotherapists from using touch in their practices, provided it was within their scope. The following year, I brought a massage table into my office and began integrating touch into my work—gently, carefully, when appropriate. It has remained there ever since.
What I witnessed was remarkable. Safe, intentional touch allowed clients to access deeper states of regulation and co-regulation, to soften into themselves, to feel the contours of their inner world with more ease. It invited a return to the body, not as a place of pain, but as a place of possibility. I immersed myself in study, attending and assisting every course Kathy Kain offered. In 2023, I had the honor of assisting her in the first-ever live Trauma Coupling Dynamics workshop, and in 2024, helped launch an online training in SE-informed touch.
At the heart of this work is the body’s innate movement toward wholeness. We learn to track how the nervous system has over- or under-coupled experiences of threat, and how these coupling dynamics can keep us frozen in outdated patterns of survival. Through safe, attuned, and titrated touch, we offer the system a new possibility—a sacred invitation to reorganize, to feel, and to restore connection.
Traumatic Grief and Threshold Care-Support and Practices
Grief is central to trauma healing, yet it's often limited to the loss of a loved one. In my own journey, I’ve come to see grief as a broader experience, encompassing personal, collective, and ancestral sorrow. It includes not only the grief of loss, but also the grief of unfulfilled dreams, unrealized potential, and the harm done to the natural world. By acknowledging these many forms of grief, we open the door to deeper healing and integration.
Beginning in 1997, I’ve supported both the beginning and end of life, drawing from my nursing background in end-of-life care. This experience deepened my understanding of the sacred nature of death, much like birth, and the need for attunement and presence at both thresholds. Grief, in all its forms, became a core part of my practice, honoring it not just cognitively or emotionally, but embodied and relationally. This process of remembrance and reclamation connects us to ourselves, each other, and the cycles of life.
Creative Grief Studio Support Practitioner (2020)
Creative Grief Studio’s certification program—Intensive online training through the focusing on contemporary, research-supported grief support approaches. This program emphasized a non-pathologizing, client-centered approach to loss, integrating creative expression, reflective practices, and imaginative meaning-making. The training covered a full range of loss experiences beyond bereavement, highlighting the role of expressive arts in fostering resilience, connection, and agency in the grieving process. We were supported in developing skills in facilitating compassionate, bias-aware conversations and guiding clients through creative modalities that support emotional processing, personal storytelling, and transformation after loss.
Compassionate Bereavement Care Provider (2023)
Compassionate Bereavement Care Certification®—Completed an intensive program and specialized training in working with individuals and communities experiencing traumatic grief. This evidence-based, mindfulness-centered framework emphasized attunement, trust, therapeutic presence, and non-pathologizing grief support. The training covered the biological, psychological, social, and existential impacts of traumatic loss, equipping practitioners with skills to support highly vulnerable populations while preventing vicarious trauma. We Explored the latest empirical research on mindfulness, grief, self-care, and compassion, with a focus on integrating full-presence, trauma-informed approaches to bereavement care.
Integrating Sexual Trauma Recovery into Healing Practices
Embodied Psychosexual Practitioner
Embodied Psychosexual Practitioner, 2024—Completed intensive training in Embodied Psychosexual Methodology with Dr. Saida Desilets, integrating somatic, psychological, and relational approaches to sexual well-being. This method bridges the gap between psyche and body, emphasizing the bi-directional communication between awareness, emotions, and physiological sexual function. The training included advanced somatic interventions, breathwork, and experiential practices to support clients in processing and transforming embodied experiences of sexuality, pleasure, trauma, and chronic pelvic pain. The work focuses on practitioner embodiment, ensuring authenticity in holding space, and client embodiment, facilitating deep nervous system regulation, empowerment and cellular repatterning.
My work is deeply rooted in the understanding that healing from trauma—whether it be developmental, systemic, relational, or sexual—requires a fully embodied approach. Just as we acknowledge the importance of grief work in trauma healing, I believe we must also center sexual trauma recovery as an essential part of the healing process. Sexual trauma does not exist in isolation; it is shaped by personal experiences, cultural conditioning, systemic oppression, and the ways in which individuals have been denied sovereignty over their own bodies.
My own journey has moved through the layers of sexual trauma recovery—from childhood violations to assault and the insidious ways that systemic misogyny and cultural suppression of sexuality can erode self-trust and embodied freedom. These experiences, along with my professional training, have shaped my commitment to sexual sovereignty as a core aspect of trauma healing. For all genders, healing is not just about recovering from harm but about reclaiming a deep, felt sense of aliveness, autonomy, and pleasure that was never meant to be taken. Sexual trauma recovery, like grief work, is not about returning to a past self—it is about uncovering the wholeness that has always been there, waiting to be reclaimed.
Expanding Into Chronic Pain & Somatic Resilience
By 2012, my focus broadened to include chronic pain and complex physical health conditions—adults and children whose suffering was often dismissed or misunderstood by the medical system. I was invited to speak twice yearly for Dr. Bennet Davis’s interdisciplinary pain clinic, sharing how Somatic Experiencing (SE) could help patients with complex pain histories.
Over time, Dr. Davis expanded this work into Project ECHO, a national medical education network connecting primary care physicians and clinics with specialists. If doctors could better understand the nervous system’s role in chronic pain, they could offer their patients more than just medications or surgery.
From this, my passion for coherence and resonance in healing work took on new depth:
How do practitioners stay attuned to themselves while holding space for another’s pain?
How do we prevent burnout while navigating the complexities of trauma healing?
These questions led me to create the SE Skill Building Group, an online space for practitioners to refine their presence, coherence, and self-care practices in session work.
Attunement, Belonging, and the Wisdom of Horses
My work with horses, which began in 1990, is rooted in a lifelong relationship with the natural world and the animal kingdom—places that have always made more sense to me than the human world ever did. Animals and Nature offer presence without demand, truth without pretense, and relationship without performance. For someone like me, who grew up navigating the complexities of human attachment, animals and nature became a sanctuary. They were my first teachers in what it meant to feel safe, seen, and connected.
Before I ever trained as a therapist, I worked in the veterinary field, caring for both large and small animals. I knew even then that animals weren’t just to be cared for—they were relational beings with their own wisdom, agency, and capacity to co-regulate. When I moved to Tucson in 1990, a neighbor and I co-created therapeutic riding camps for children—a joyful and affirming experience that revealed how healing and play could emerge naturally when animals were involved. In the early 2000s, I volunteered with Tucson TROT, a therapeutic riding organization. Those experiences deeply informed my extracurricular studies and focus for my master's degree in counseling psychology.
It became clear that my path would be one of integration—weaving the innate intelligence of animals and nature, the regulatory power of touch, and the relational repair of somatic trauma work into a unified offering.
The Intersection of Equine Work, Somatics, and Deep Healing
In 2017, I co-founded Equinimity, Inc. with Jeanie Shepherd—a nonprofit organization dedicated to trauma-informed, somatically-based equine work. Horses, like the nervous system, respond to attunement, presence, and unspoken truth. They reflect not who we want to be, but who we are beneath the surface. This work became a central part of my practice, blending:
Equine-assisted regulation and co-regulation
Touch work and somatic attunement
Expressive arts and movement-based integration
Grief support and ancestral healing
Relational repair in the field between human and horse
Since that time, Jeanie and I been curating and facilitating immersive healing experiences that bring together deep somatic process, equine presence, and communal restoration. These retreats are designed to support transformative nervous system healing through the wisdom of the body and the relational field we share with these sentient beings.
Working with horses isn’t about performance or mastery. It’s about remembering—remembering how to listen with the body, how to speak through presence, and how to belong again. It’s about finding our place in the larger rhythm of things. We are not separate from life—we are life. And the horses, in their clarity and coherence, help us find our way back to that truth.
A Throughline: The Wisdom of the Body & The Natural World
Throughout all of this, nature and the nonverbal world of animals have been a guiding force in my life and work. The sense of belonging we find in the natural world—through movement, rhythm, and presence—has been a lifeline for me, a place where deep listening and interconnectedness come alive.
Whether working with children, practitioners, chronic pain patients, or those in deep grief, my path has always been about creating spaces where the body’s truth can be met with dignity, where regulation can return, and where trauma’s grip can loosen—one breath, one moment, one attuned choice at a time.
Retreats & Immersive Healing Experiences
Since 2017, I have been curating and facilitating retreats that bring together deep somatic process, touch work, and communal healing. These retreats are immersive experiences designed to support profound transformation by working with the body, nervous system, and relational field.
Somatic Healing Retreats and Online Offerings with Ergos Institute of Somatic Education & Peter A Levine, PhD
In collaboration with Ergos and Dr. Levine, I have co-facilitated retreats that explore the somatic experience of healing trauma, with a focus on developmental trauma, PTSD, and embodiment capacity.
Returning Home Retreat for Veterans (2019)
This retreat integrated Somatic Experiencing® principles with equine-assisted somatic experiences to support veterans in their healing journey. Sponsored by SEI and Ergos, pre- and post-retreat studies showed a significant reduction in PTSD symptoms. Designed to assist military service members transitioning out of active duty, the retreat provided an alternative approach to trauma healing by addressing nervous system regulation and relational repair.
Walpole, Maine (2021)
Returning Home – An intensive trauma healing retreat exploring the nervous system’s capacity for resilience, recovery, and embodied transformation.
Ergos Online Practice Sessions (2021)
Community Health Somatic Education (CHSE), collaboratively provided practice sessions for SE practitioners, exploring the many somatic practices developed and utilized by Peter Levine. These sessions were designed to support trauma healing and integration, offering practitioners hands-on experience in applying these techniques to their work.
Sounds True Collaboration with Ergos and Peter Levine (2022-Present)
Body As Healer — Co-facilitated an in-depth online program alongside Dr. Peter A. Levine, guiding participants through somatic interventions for chronic pain relief. Co-led live Q&A sessions, facilitated independent Q&A sessions, and supported participants in integrating body-based techniques to regulate the nervous system, heal trauma, and cultivate sustainable well-being. Co-edited the accompanying course workbook to enhance clarity and depth in the learning materials. Additionally, voice-recorded guided somatic practices, providing attendees with an ongoing resource for experiential learning. Led practices incorporating mindful awareness, breathwork, and gentle movement to support individuals with chronic pain conditions such as headaches, nerve damage, fibromyalgia, and IBS.
Sedona, AZ (2022)
Embracing Courage, Overcoming Obstacles, and Returning to Wholeness – An Ergos retreat centered on resilience, deep nervous system repair, and embodied healing.
Brela, Croatia (September 2022)
Embracing Courage, Overcoming Obstacles, and Returning to Wholeness – An Ergos retreat with Peter Levine focused on deep nervous system repair, resilience, and the somatic pathways to healing.
Math Moms (2022)
A CHSE online offering designed to explore the intersection of community, nervous system regulation, and resilience, helping mothers, teachers, clergy, and caregivers engage with learning in a more embodied and attuned way.
Broughton, UK (2023)
Exploring and Healing the Roots of Trauma – An Ergos retreat with Peter Levine examining developmental trauma, intergenerational trauma, and ancestral trauma through somatic and relational healing practices.
Imiloa, Costa Rica (2024)
Bodywork for Developmental Trauma with Peter Levine – An Ergos retreat focused on somatic touch, developmental trauma, and nervous system healing.
Burlingame, CA (June 2024)
Bodywork for Developmental Trauma with Peter Levine – An Ergos hands-on, somatic-based healing retreat exploring trauma recovery through touch and relational presence.
Deep Healing & Somatic Presence Retreats Offered Collaboratively Through Equinimity
Istria, Croatia (2022, 2023, 2024)
From Trauma to Sacred Wholeness – a three day retreat: Exploring the pathways from trauma toward embodied healing and wholeness.
Dismantling Shame – A four day retreat: Deep exploration of shame as a block to life force, truth, and presence, and the relational healing needed to restore vitality and aliveness.
Touch Skills Practice – A three day retreat: Hands-on skill-building for practitioners working with nervous system regulation and somatic repair.
Embodied Awakening — A private day-long retreat: An experiential gathering exploring cyclical wisdom, embodied awakening, and reclaiming intuition. Rooted in ancient traditions of women’s circles, this retreat focuses on reconnecting with the deep instincts, rhythms, and wild nature that exist within.
Berlin, Germany (2023)
Inter-Being Workshop with Lara Dunkel – A gathering focused on presence, attunement, and deep relational healing.
These retreats are immersive experiences in embodied presence, relational healing, nervous system regulation and repatterning. Whether working with practitioners or individuals seeking deep transformation, the container of a retreat allows for a depth of process that unfolds through movement, witnessing, and somatic integration.
Curriculum Vitae
Early Studies & Foundational Training
1990-1994: Co-facilitated Therapeutic Riding Horse Camps for at-risk children and families.
1990-1992: Assisted Dr Nancy O’Connor in her work with Ritual Abuse Survivors.
Organized a local symposium for raising awareness of the complexity of severe DID presentations. Outreach went to survivors, interdisciplinary teams including Tucson Police Department and Tucson Fire Department.
1992: AIDS prevention and intervention
Provided forensic rape kit training w local first responders
2000-2002: Studied Craniosacral Therapy with Hugh Milne and received local mentorship.
2003: Studied Judith Young Animal Assisted Therapy Levels 1-3.
2002-2004: Volunteered at Therapeutic Riding of Tucson (TROT) with children who were residents of Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind (ASDB).
2005-2006: Studied Sensory Integration with Mary O’Connell, MC, PT.
2002-2006: Attended Barbara Rector’s Adventures in Awareness day-long programs for Equine Facilitated Mental Health.
2004-2008: Clinical Director for Turning Points School for Gifted Youth: Co-developed the Equine Program.
2006: Studied and completed Equine Therapy in Salmon, Idaho; 40 hour program:
Trained in Linda Tellington-Jones’s T-Touch Approach
2004-2007: Studied and completed several certification programs for Sensory Integration and movement therapy:
Catherine Chemin Schneider, O.T.R
Spacial Dynamics - Jaimen McMillan
Bill Hubert Bal-A-Vis-X
Skinner Release
2004-2008: Studied with Dr. Stanley Greenspan: DIR/Floortime Certificate Program.
2004-2008: Frequent speaker at the Southern Arizona Association for Play Therapy on:
Relationship-based, somatic trauma-informed play therapy
Working with complex families, sensory dysregulation, and neurodivergence (including autism)
Dyad therapy and developmental delays
Neurological impact of abuse and neglect in young children
Dr. Stanley Greenspan’s DIR model
Focus: Dignity-preserving, relationship-based approaches centering co-regulation to support cellular repatterning.
2006-2008: Trained staff and executives at the Child-Parent Center (Southern Arizona Head Start) in relationship-based, developmentally informed psychotherapy. This training expanded from an initial 2-hour session to a fully recorded 2-day event for 500+ employees.
2008: Trained in Equine Assisted Mental Health through Prescott College: Essential Clinical Skills and Equine Assisted Mental Health 40 hours.
2008-2009: Co-founded an AHCCCS-based Equine program.
2010-Present: Natural Death Care.
Community Engagement
1998-2015: Offered relationship-based and somatically-oriented parenting and clinical attachment theory groups:
2004-2008: Served on a child abuse prevention task force led by former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano.
2004-2012: Wrote and trained habilitation programs for children on the autism spectrum.
2006-2008: Led conflict resolution processes:
At a major agency supporting low-income parents and children.
For a local tribal organization ahead of a large-scale historical trauma training.
2008: Awarded SENG Honor Role: Recognition for Outstanding Educational Services to Gifted Children.
2012-2023: Presenter for Dr. Bennet Davis’s interdisciplinary chronic pain group, later integrated into Project ECHO, a national medical consultation network.
2017: Co-founded Equinimity with Jeanie Shepherd.
Professional Development & Teaching
2010-2022: Assisted numerous Somatic Experiencing (SE) cohorts with faculty members.
2011-12: Attended Somatic Resilience and Regulation with Kathy Kain and Stephen Tyrell
2012-present: Attended and assisted all of Kathy Kain’s trainings, online and in person: Touch Skills Training (TST), TST online, Making Friends with our Brian, Somatic Narrative, Somatics of Emotion, Somatics of COmplex Emotions, Trauma Coupling Dynamics
2016-2017: Studied fascia & structural integration with Tom Myers and Gil Hedley.
2016-2017: Studied Pilates at Centerline Movement.
2019-present: Launched SE Skill Building Group, a community offering for Somatic Experiencing practitioners focusing on:
Practitioner sustainability
Coherence and resonance in sessions
Integrating self-care and touch skills into practice.
2019: Co-authored and facilitated the somatic horse experiential component for Dr. Levine’s Returning Home retreat for veterans. Research indicated a measurable reduction in PTSD symptoms.
2019: Hosted Know Thy Fascia Workshop, integrating fascia research and equine-assisted therapy.
2019: Presented at the PATH International Conference (Colorado) on:
Fascia & its relationship to trauma.
Developmental trauma and equine-assisted therapy.
2020-2021: Facilitated a 10-month online grief support group, exploring grief as a social justice issue.
2020: Completed the Creative Grief Studio certification, emphasizing client-centered, non-medicalized grief support.
2021: Led Ergos practice sessions for SE practitioners, exploring Peter Levine’s methodologies.
2022: Participated in U.lab 2x, an accelerator for systems transformation.
2022: Co-led a webinar for the Somatic Experiencing Training Institute: Horses, Humans, and Secure-Based Relationality.
2022: Ordained as a minister.
2023: Completed Compassionate Bereavement Care Certification with Dr. Joanne Cacciatore & the MISS Foundation.
2024: Completed the Embodied Psychosexual Program with Dr. Saida Desilets.
Retreats & Advanced Training
2018-2024: Assisted and co-facilitated multiple retreats with Dr. Peter Levine, including:
Returning Home (2019): A first-of-its-kind Somatic Experiencing retreat for veterans.
Eye of the Needle (2018-2019): A deep exploration into trauma and near-death experiences.
Archetypes & Trauma (2020): A masterclass integrating archetypal wisdom into trauma healing.
Body as Healer (2022-2023): A Sounds True online program.
Developmental Trauma & Bodywork (2024): Costa Rica and Burlingame retreats.
2021-Present: Organizer and facilitator of Istria Croatia retreats, covering:
Dismantling Shame
Trauma and Sacred Wholeness
Somatic Touch Skills
Trauma Coupling Dynamics
Embodied Awakening
2023: Shared the stage with Dr. Bennet Davis on the intersection of chronic pain, PTSD, and allopathic medicine.
2023: Assisted Kathy Kain in her first-ever live Trauma Coupling Dynamics workshop.
2023: Participated in Inter-Being workshop (Berlin) with Lara Dunkel.