Guiding transformation
through dreams,
psyche, and spirit
About Me
“If we pay attention to our dreams, instead of living in a cold, impersonal world of meaningless chance, we may begin to emerge into a world of our own, full of important and secretly ordered events.”
— Marie-Louise von Franz —
Our dreams, memories and visions have a purpose. The subconscious communicates with the conscious mind through imagery, bridging the gap and bringing symbolic images from the imaginary realm into waking life. They are a path to wholeness.
Although our dreams will differ, they speak to us in the universal language of metaphor—the same language found throughout the world in myths, fairy tales, and religions. These images hold meaning that is unique to each individual dreamer. Embodied Imagination® facilitates access to the creative and therapeutic content of our dreams and memories and opens the space for conversation between the conscious and unconscious realms.
Integrating the conscious and unconscious worlds through dream work can be an invaluable part of psychological growth and physical healing. As a survivor of sexual abuse, cancer, grief and loss, I have experienced post-trauma suffering first-hand. As a researcher and therapist, I understand that peace and happiness are as deeply embodied in us as are trauma and suffering.
As an Embodied Imagination® practitioner, with an MA in counseling psychotherapy and a PhD in Mind-Body Medicine, I know how to recruit deep-rooted emotions along with dreaming and the imagination to facilitate growth and healing. The process creates a collaborative environment where I work with clients to examine, embody, and begin to understand profound emotional states that are not available to us in our waking life. By attuning to subconscious experiences in this way, we interrupt and change neurological flooding, and emotional overwhelm. We can heal and calm the psycho-neurologic system, and bring our body, mind, and spirit into a more aligned state of wholeness and well-being. We can acquaint ourselves with fresh new perspectives and resources.
Offerings
Psychospiritual Counseling
Psychospiritual psychotherapy recognizes that clients need healing from past experiences, but also acknowledges that there is a great potential for growth and development as we process the learning.
For example, painful experiences can soften the heart as we learn compassion for ourselves and others. Anger can evoke the fierceness of the warrior archetype needed for clarity of intention, expression of one’s truth, and protection of boundaries. One primary value of dealing with childhood trauma is recovering the natural spontaneity and creative power of the divine child, which become blocked in traumatic experiences.
The psychospiritually focused client is being guided toward greater awareness, responsibility and resources. This involves learning how to integrate the various forces that have been present all along, creating disturbances and symptoms because their presence, needs, and contributions must be acknowledged (Shadow Work). The process of becoming fully human requires transformation and integration. It means developing a compassionate attentiveness to somatic sensations, inner voices and feelings. How can we talk about creating peace and honoring diversity in the outer world if elements of our inner world are criticized and rejected?
A primary ethical standard I apply is that I do not apply what I have not experienced in my own training and life. I have been guiding others on their path to growth and healing for nearly 2 decades.
My role in the planetary awakening isn’t to tell others what to do or to believe. My role is to help people develop enough energy, inner resources, resilience, capacity, skills, tools and spiritual insight to live in alignment with their own integrity, values and purpose.
Embodied Imagination® and Dreamwork
«During the practice of Embodied Imagination® dream or memory images are benevolent companions who offer their support well beyond the session. Support comes in the form of knowledge, qualities, and understanding possessed by the image, which can later be physically referenced by the dreamer. Embodiment is a restorative practice that builds intuition. We don’t think our way into Wholeness. We feel it.”
— Dr. Katherine Lawson, MA, Ph.D.
Embodied Imagination® is a therapeutic and creative form of working with dreams and memories pioneered by Dutch Jungian psychoanalyst Robert Bosnak and based on principles first developed by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, and on the work of American archetypal psychologist James Hillman, who focused on soul as a simultaneous multiplicity of autonomous states.
While dreaming we visit an in-between reality, populated by embodied intelligences that operate outside of the mind-body conundrum. During the Embodied Imagination® practice, imagination grows itself a body. Your body. We use imagery as the language of the unconscious and the body as a vehicle for expressing and relating to it. One becomes embodied by or absorbed into an image environment. The images can be described as benevolent companions who continue to offer support beyond the EI session. Support comes in the form of knowledge, capacities, and understanding possessed and shared by the image, which can later be adapted by the dreamer.
I work with Embodied Imagination® to provide clients a path toward becoming their best selves. By using the power of the subconscious mind and the imagination, I guide individuals to embody significant experiences found in their dreams, visions and memories. If you are working through anxiety, grief, fear, depression, relationship issues, or are just plain stuck — I know what you’re going through. And I can help.
Psychedelic Integration
«It has been said that ceremony is a life changing experience, something that irrevocably It has been said that ceremony is a life changing experience, something that irrevocably changes your perspective on self, identity, and purpose».
This rapid and profound transformation presents an opportunity for profound healing, but it can also leave you sensitive, vulnerable, and can be overwhelming to process alone. With thoughtful integration, the teachings from psychedelic medicines can be applied to our daily lives in powerful ways.
Images from our dreams and from plant medicine journeys can be viewed as independent beings, possessing their own intelligence. Additionally, much like during dreams, when altering our consciousness we visit realms that can be viewed as a real world between the corporeal and spiritual. In our sessions, you will learn to connect to the symbols and images from your plant medicine experience through your body, rather than attempting to
understand the journey through your mind alone.
Plant medicine integration ⎘
«Hay una alquimia sagrada en nuestras cicatrices: el arte de no esconder la quiebra, sino de habitarla. Celebremos nuestras historias tal y como hace el kintsugi: la técnica ancestral japonesa que repara cerámica con oro, mostrando el valor y la belleza de nuestras grietas»
Book a Session
This human being is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them all at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes.
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.
The Guest House, Rumi.
Translated by Coleman Barks in 1995.
