Integrative Trainings
for Culture Changing Practitioners
If you are here, you are drawn to multiple perspectives, to seeing the world through new lenses, and to the growth that can occur - both personally and culturally - when we bring fresh visions to our already embodied wisdom.
You understand the power of a radically integrative perspective. And here, that means two things: integrative in our practices and integrative in our personhood.
We take a radically integrative approach to trauma education - incorporating somatic, psychological, and social-ecological approaches to trauma, not reducing all voices to one dominant narrative. We also understand that our own integration of the learning is essential, rooted in our "knowing, being, and doing."
Learn more about our integrative principles:
Embodied, Ecological, Energetic
Embodied
Trauma lives in bodies, and for this reason, it is best addressed through approaches that acknowledge the body as the ground of our lived experience. Taking the body seriously means that we may move at a slower pace, mindful of promises or approaches that might bypass the body's wisdom.
Ecological
Trauma lives in nested interpersonal, communal, cultural and historic systems. An ecological approach to trauma is a systems approach. It asks us to become aware of these nested systems and how they shape our lives, often distributing traumatic stress unevenly across the social landscape.
Energetic
Traditional wisdoms tell us that what we call trauma has many patterns that can show up differently for each person. We can approach these patterns using different lenses and languages, and having different perspectives allows us to be supple, to be flexible, and to meet each person as unique.
Knowing, Doing, Being
Cultivate your Wisdom
There is so much to understand about trauma. This can be a journey of lifelong learning, always expanding our knowing. At the Institute, we seek to create co-learning spaces that are authentic and rigorous, and where each person is witnessed for their own wisdom and receives what they need to grow as a practitioner.
Hone your skills
In addition to our knowing, trauma competency requires that we cultivate our doing, the learning that comes from practice and lived experience. Our trainings and certifications provide ample opportunity for engaged practice and for cultivating the skills appropriate to our respective modality and scope of practice.
Step into your Leadership
When we build on our knowing and doing, we naturally cultivate our being - the third leg of a truly trauma competent practice. As we come to embody our wisdom, we often discover that it means something less than mastery and something more like deep okayness, as we lead with heart, humility and curiosity.
Hello, I'm Sarah. (she/her)
I am a medical anthropologist, licensed psychotherapist, and nationally board-certified acupuncturist and herbalist with three decades of work in the field of integrative mental health.
In addition to my clinical work, I have spent the last 18 years in the field of progressive education. I love creating powerful co-learning and healing spaces that are radically synergistic and integrative—drawing on multiple perspectives, voices, languages, and lineages and creating a deep sense of inclusivity and belonging.
I understand that in both healing and learning, every part of our story needs to be honored, held, and supported.
You can learn more about me here:
More about Me
My work and living takes place on the ancestral, contemporary and unceded homeland, N'dakinna,
