Create new chapters of your life
in which symptoms do not define you.
Hi, I'm Amanda, a Mind-Body Healing Practitioner and Trauma Specialist. I help people who were previously discouraged in years of unsuccessful treatment finally find liberation from neuroplastic conditions including chronic illness and syndromes, chronic pain, and post-trauma symptoms.
I support the following groups:
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persons with trauma who've been discouraged by standardized treatment approaches and unsuccessful therapy
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persons with chronic health conditions that have not improved with treatment, and who wish to reduce their symptoms and reclaim vitality
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persons with chronic and recurring pain who've struggled to find relief from treatment
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persons trying to reinvent themselves amid existential crisis or sickness
Most of the people I serve had struggled for decades with unsuccessful treatments before consulting me. In our work together, they learned that what they were suffering from were neuroplastic conditions. They finally found liberation through our mind-body healing sessions.
You can visit my testimonials page to read their stories.
Why am I struggling to heal
(even after years of treatment)?
If you've tried mainstream approaches to healing, but struggled to see results, this doesn't mean that you're helpless. It means that standardized treatment is falling short of meeting your needs. Liberation from symptoms requires understanding the origins of dysfunction, and then resolving it at the root. This discovery process is rarely included in institutional approaches. It's not that you are inherently flawed or "unfixable." You just need a more personalized approach.
For decades, research in psycho-neuro-immunology, trauma, and neuroplasticity have mapped the relationship between the brain's perceptions and the body's responses.
Every perception you hold, whether you're aware of it or not, impacts your brain wave activity and your biochemical state. Feelings of fear and threat create chemical responses that prepare your body to face the challenge. Over time, your brain, nervous system, and body become habituated around these survival patterns. This can result in immune dysfunction, chronic illness and syndromes, debilitating pain and fatigue, and trauma symptoms, now known as neuroplastic conditions.
Neuroplastic conditions are physical symptoms and syndromes generated by perceptions of the brain and nervous system.
I teach clients about the connection between their brains and bodies, and how their perceptions, emotions, culture, and life experiences are impacting their symptoms. I guide them through stages of psycho-emotional and physical support rooted in applied mind-body science, and help them find liberation from symptoms that they've struggled with for years.
What causes neuroplastic conditions?
Many treatment-resistant health disorders, syndromes, chronic pain, and trauma symptoms develop because changes to your brain and nervous system have increased your perception of threat.
You can perceive threats both consciously and unconsciously ... meaning that you can be in a state of fear without being aware of that fear.
When you are sensing a threat, your brain tells your body to respond. When this protective pattern plays on repeat, or remains on high alert for prolonged periods, symptoms arise in the body.
These symptoms are widely misunderstood within the mainstream because of outdated, fragmented, and standardized approaches to patient inquiry that do not evaluate the psyche and body as interconnected, and do not effectively track for unconscious fears and triggers.
It's important to note that even seemingly positive life experiences, like landing a great job, can be a source of hidden threats. For example, the young executive knows that his job security is dependent on his next great idea, and lives in continuous fear of not generating that. Thus, even persons who do not identify as having trauma can develop neuroplastic conditions.
Our brains are also changed by moments that cause us to feel isolated, surprised, or mark a turning point in our lives - whether positive or negative. During these moments, we enter a critical theta brain wave frequency for about 20-seconds, and whatever we are thinking or feeling at the time becomes an unconscious belief that changes the way our brain behaves.
Unconscious beliefs cause the brain to magnify and record all information that reinforces the belief, and to dismiss all information that counters the belief. That's why a person who has been betrayed in the past is constantly predicting (or trying to prevent) the next betrayal. This causes ongoing arousal in the brain and body and can develop into a full-blown neuroplastic condition.
If you have been struggling with long-haul sickness, health disorders or syndromes, chronic pain, or trauma symptoms, you may be living with a neuroplastic condition that can be gradually improved or even diminished through applied mind-body science interventions.
What to expect in our sessions...
Stress, and the problems it causes in our psyche, body, and relationships, arise from the threats we perceive.
The problem is, we don't always know when we're perceiving threats because these perceptions exist outside of our conscious awareness.
In our sessions, you'll be supported with research-based, clinically effective, trauma-skilled approaches for improving the health of your psyche, body, and relationships...
You'll learn about how your brain and body have been changed by moments of unexpected change, isolation, and shock.
You'll learn about how your culture and environment impact your symptoms and what you can do to finally break free.
You'll learn about how your emotions and trauma are chemical reactions inside of you,
affecting your anatomy and physiology, and steps you can take to undo the damage.
You'll gain new understanding of your triggers, why they occur, and what you can do to improve your relationship with these chaotic occurrences.
You'll gain awareness about how your hidden self-perceptions impact
your relationships and what you can do to shift problematic relating and communication patterns.
You'll examine how your stress patterns have held you back from the experiences you long for, and you'll be guided to finally move forward with confidence.
You'll gain advanced trauma support skills that have helped people who were previously discouraged by decades of unsuccessful standardized treatment finally break free and heal.
You'll be guided with care and understanding by a practitioner with a history of success who has also personally healed from complex trauma and chronic illness.
You can have faith in the process as you receive a research-based, clinically effective, advanced trauma-skilled approach to healing longstanding stress patterns in your life.
As a Mind-Body Healing Practitioner and Trauma Specialist, I operate independent from any institution so I can serve people who've struggled to see results within the limitations of standardized treatment.
My support is not a substitute for appropriate medical care, and I do not diagnose or medically treat any illness. I support clients with finding liberation from neuroplastic conditions including health disorders, chronic pain, and post-trauma symptoms.
About Amanda
I'm a Mind-Body Healing Practitioner, Trauma Specialist, and Individuation Coach. I pioneered this path out of necessity, while striving for liberation from my own complex, often debilitating trauma and bouts of chronic illness that once drained my quality of life.
I spent my 20s working inside of mainstream healthcare after completing my B.S. in Legal Studies with a minor in Health Care Policy. Then, I carefully chose a non-traditional path - beyond the standardized limitations and colonial structures that have left humanity so disconnected from the truth about the origins of sickness and the possibilities for healing.
While working in Chicago as a Patient Care Specialist, I helped dialysis clinics improve patient outcomes by implementing mind-body education and depression management services. At this time, I also worked as a lead advocate for the Cancer Action Network, a role that led me to meet with lawmakers in Washington D.C. In 2013, I became disillusioned by cultural norms that prioritized profit over impact and decided to join the
Peace Corps.
While serving in South Africa, I met David Patient, who in 1983, became one of the first people in the world to be diagnosed with AIDS. Doctors told him he'd be dead in 6 months, and there were no treatments available. But David pioneered his own health plans and lived another 34 years. He became an award winning United Nations consultant, and co-authored the book, The Healer Inside You, Using PNI Mind Body Science to Help Heal Your Body. David was my mentor from 2013-2017. During this time, I also trained with his colleague and co-author, a research psychologist specializing in psycho-neuro-immunology.
In 2015, I entered what would become a 10-year mentorship with a body-centered therapy practitioner (The Hakomi Method). I have learned from some of the world's leading psych and trauma experts in Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's Traumatic Stress Studies Certificate program, through the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, and multiple courses on body-based trauma support with Dr. Pat Ogden (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy) and Dr. Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing). I have over three years of training in trauma-specialized therapeutic movement and hold certification in Hatha Yoga, Primal Vinyasa®, and Primal Therapeutics®.
I have lived and learned with families who grew up under political apartheid in South Africa and in the Middle East. They taught me truths about trauma and healing that cannot be learned in a class, but only witnessed in real life - realities about our human capacity for healing, adaptability, and perseverance.
From 2016-2020, I led a media project in which I interviewed military veterans about the psychological aftermath of service to promote healing and understanding about the human aspect of war. Many of those interviewed were combat vets who had served in the Korean, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq conflicts, who opened up about experiences they had never spoken with anyone about since being discharged. Most reported feeling tremendous psychological relief from their participation in the project.
In my childhood, I endured multiple adverse events as the daughter of a teen mom. Overcoming trauma and stress-related chronic illness has been a survival necessity for me, which led to my now 17 years of professional experience and studies in Applied Mind-Body Science and Advanced Trauma Support Skills.
Today, I specialize in helping people who previously struggled for decades in unsuccessful treatment to find liberation from neuroplastic conditions including health disorders and syndromes, chronic pain, and trauma. It is an honor to help people create new chapters of their life in which their symptoms do not define them.
I meet with clients remotely while living among the Maya people of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, where I serve on the board of directors of an indigenous-led NGO.
