“Hydropaths use contact, touch, attention, listening, faith and trust as a part of the healing process. These curative aspects of the healer-patient relationship arouse hope and expectancy of cure and reinforce ties with the social group, minimizing the sense of isolation that so often accompanies sickness.” The Chico Spa story
This website gives a sense of how I work as a psychotherapist and teacher of natural healing and introduces Chico Water Cure Spa’s services designed to evoke the body’s aliveness and nurture a calm, clear mind.
I have practiced in the Northwest as a naturopathic physician specializing in psychotherapy since 1979. In 2000 I created Chico Spa in a vibrant, tranquil environment of hospitality on Dye’s Inlet of Puget Sound. Sheltered by old growth fir and cedar in view of majestic Mt. Rainier, Chico is a therapeutic day spa where clients have direct experiences of well-being. Chico’s mission is to restore natural rhythms of body and mind through therapeutic bathing, food-based cleansing, and an embodied approach to psychoemotional healing.
Therapy clients transform suffering into self-knowledge and learn mindful approaches to self-care. In body-based therapy sessions, I guide clients to be present to their felt experience. Step-by-step, as they tell their stories, we use right-brain processes – sensation, gesture, emotion, image, and meaning – to track shifts in emotional states and promote mindbody integration. The intention is to return resilience to a patient’s disrupted nervous system through interactions that foster restoration, healing and empowerment.
Over thirty years, I have explored deeply the nature of healing relationship. By studying the effects of traumatic stress on the brain and on emotional regulation, I have discovered efficacious ways of joining with clients to promote mindbody healing. I delight in teaching these approaches to colleagues and students of the healing arts. Learn more »
Enliven bodymind. Change habits.
I love guiding people to experience life-giving changes in the body. An attended water therapy treatment can transform stress into sensations of calm and vitality in a few hours. Learn more » My wellness and lifestyle change groups gain tools to nurture resilience by following simple cleansing and awareness practices. Participants reliably recover their energy, eliminate common symptoms, modify responses to stress, and feel fabulous! Learn more » In self-care groups, women's stories weave a circle of safety and support in which we help one another dislodge outworn habits and move toward healthful changes. Learn more »
Body-based therapeutic approaches
Neurobiological research affirms that acute and chronic stress and early developmental trauma cause changes in the brain that disturb emotional and cognitive health. They also contribute to chronic physical conditions, such as IBS, migraine, whiplash, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and autoimmune disorders. Body-based approaches that change the nervous system offer new possibilities for clients to manage anxiety, depression, chronic physical conditions, and habituated behavior.
Within an attuned therapeutic relationship, gentle interventions, which invite a client’s embodied awareness, help to regulate intense feelings and promote mindbody integration. Over time the practitioner’s face-to-face rhythms of caring challenge and reliable support lead the patient to enhanced learning and improved emotional self-regulation.
Professional trainings
Exciting neuroscience research exploring the interpersonal nature of brain-body connections reveals the necessity of regulating the nervous system to stimulate well being. In the presence of this advance in understanding, doors have opened to new applications of body-based transformative processes in the therapeutic relationship.
I offer consultation and training for practitioners to refine therapeutic communication and learn efficacious ways to foster resilience during clinical encounters. Whatever their specialties – and with or without talk – through intuitive, empathic, body-based processes, practitioners can cultivate resonance in the therapeutic relationship. This resonance assists patients to adhere to treatment plans, integrate new learning, and implement personal paths to health. Learn more »
I train students and practitioners in the time-tested Nature Cure methods of spa medicine practices offered at Chico Spa to engage personal healing resources: gentle cleansing, a variety of therapeutic bathing methods, and utilizing the natural environment to refresh the senses and develop neural flexibility and balance.
I also consult with professionals who are interested in adding Nature Cure approaches to their practices, for example: water therapy services; conducive environments for healing; or staff training in interpersonal skills to support patients’ wellness. Learn more »
My educational and professional background
As a naturopathic physician practicing for 30 years, I focus on therapies that enhance the inherent self-healing powers of the individual, including body-based psychotherapy, water therapies, and lifestyle change. Since 1999, I have practiced at Chico Water Cure Spa on Puget Sound, where guests have direct experiences of well-being through therapeutic bathing, bodywork, time in Nature, and food-based cleansing – all intended to restore the natural rhythms of body and mind.
I was a leader in the developing naturopathic profession during the 1980s and ‘90s, both as a founding director and second president of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, and as dean at Bastyr University. I have studied since 1998 with Leela Miller, MA, a psychotherapist specializing in character disorders and early developmental issues. I trained for four years with Sharon Stanley, PhD, and facilitated Dr. Stanley’s trainings in Somatic Transformation®. In my current practice I increasingly employ right-brain processes to access sensation, gesture, emotion, image, archetype and meaning to heal the whole person.
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