About Me
The time for you is now.
Welcome! I’m glad you are here taking this important step on your healing journey. I specialize in helping others heal from trauma. I am a survivor of much trauma and have done life-changing healing of my own developmental trauma. It is my passion and life’s purpose to help others tap into their own incredible and innate power to heal themselves. The freedom is just on the other side of the trauma. It is profound and doable and you deserve to and can heal too.
There’s a complex relationship between our current distress and our patterned nervous system responses. Our nervous systems are wired to respond to threats, the deepest of which are issues of safety and attachment. These are very intricately linked with the experience of shame. Our systems become overwhelmed and go into our survival responses – flight, fight, freeze, appeasing, dissociation, etc. Daily life can trigger the activation in our nervous systems and those responses get activated and we get stuck in these patterned responses. It might look like anxiety, depression, shame spiral, sleep disturbances, physical symptoms, addictions of all types, including substances, etc. These are just some of the manifestations of unhealed wounds. Deep and permanent healing requires healing of the nervous system. It’s very important to understand that all of these survival responses are how we made it through to where we are today. This is how your system protected you to survive the trauma.. You are probably here because these responses are no longer serving you.
We all hold trauma, which includes historic / generational trauma.
We are wounded in relationship, and we heal in relationship. In therapy, we take a very gentle approach to connecting with the wounded parts of ourselves accessing the neural networks connected to them, and processing the trauma, somatically, in the body. When we fully process the trauma, it will not be there to be activated by current events in our lives anymore. There is tremendous freedom, just on the other side of the courageous journey to heal. We do this tender work together.
I would love to accompany you on your own healing journey.
My Practice: I’m an expert in treating trauma and have worked with trauma for over 30 years. I’m a Brainspotting Consultant. I have been in private practice for over 20 years. I work virtually, and can work with anyone in the states of California & Arizona. I am trained in many trauma treatment modalities including Internal Family Systems IFS/Parts), certified in EMDR, certified in HeartMath, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Flash, Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB), and I’m also a Reiki master teacher, certified medium and intuitive healer. My primary modality is Brainspotting, and I incorporate other modalities.
Education/ Experience: I received a BA in psychology with an English minor, from San Diego State University (SDSU) in 1992, where I graduated magna cum laude.
I received an MSW (Master of Social Work) from SDSU, for which I was awarded a CALSWEC stipend, in 1996.
I received a BA in psychology with an English minor, from San Diego State University (SDSU) in 1992, where I graduated magna cum laude and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. I received an MSW (Master of Social Work) from SDSU, for which I was awarded a CALSWEC stipend, in 1996.
Social Work Career: After graduate school, I worked with trauma for 30 years in a variety of capacities and roles (while simultaneously maintaining a small private practice) including schools, adolescent treatment programs, group homes, family support agencies, and public child welfare in San Diego, Oakland, and Los Angeles.
I had many roles in my twenty-year child welfare career where I worked with community partners and governmental agencies to create and enhance collaboration and participated in and led teams to develop innovative public child welfare programs that are being replicated in the United States. These programs redesigned systemic approaches to better support vulnerable children and their families, decrease time spent in out-of-home (“foster”) care, increase children’s connection to their families, created permanent families for children, increased oversight of mental health services to youth in foster care who suffer the greatest struggles, including programs to monitor psychotropic medications and implementing and overseeing psychiatric discharge planning conferences. I initiated a collaboration with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, where I led a team to implement an outreach program for parents incarcerated in all of the Los Angeles County jails and coordinated much media coverage of this program. I was awarded the coveted National Association of Counties (NACO) award for the development of the Parents in Partnership program – a peer mentorship program. I found the impact of this macro work quite rewarding. I had also been often frustrated by the lack of access to deep healing services, understanding that healing is the key to breaking the generational cycles of the trauma that I saw so many suffering. I ultimately left the field of social work to pursue my calling of full-time private practice, as I had always intended.
Advanced Training in Brainspotting
I am a Brainspotting Consultant/ Expert with over 50 Brainspotting trainings, workshops, advanced clinical consultation groups, and intensives. I’ve assisted over 40 Brainspotting trainings and specialty workshops. My work is grounded in extensive, ongoing advanced training in Brainspotting and the neuroscience and physiology of trauma, with a focus on depth and precision techniques. Here are some:
Brainspotting Phase 1 — Pie Frey
Brainspotting Phase 2 — Cherie Lindberg
Brainspotting Phase 3 — David Grand
Brainspotting Phase 4 — David Grand
Brainspotting Phase 5 — David Grand
Brainspotting Master Class — David Grand, PhD
Brainspotting & Inner Blindspot Work — Connie Johnshoy-Currie
Brainspotting & Parts Advanced Consultation Group — Cynthia Schwartzberg
Brainspotting and Parts — Cherie Lindberg & Cynthia Schwartzberg
Posttraumatic Growth: Brainspotting & Parts Roadmap to Liberation — Cherie Lindberg
Attachment Specialty Training of Brainspotting — Jennifer Delaney
Brainspotting with Relationships — Jaegil Lee
Brainspotting with Visual Figures for Relational Healing — Jaegil Lee
Brainspotting for Children and Adolescents — Monika Baumann
Dissociative Identity Phenomena (DIP) & Inner Parts Work Advanced BSP Specialty Workshop — Connie Johnshoy-Currie
Dissociative Identity Phenomena (DIP) Consultation Group
Dissociative Identity Phenomena and Inner Parts Work — Connie Johnshoy-Currie
High Acuity Care Brainspotting — Steve Sawyer
Clearing Limbic Countertransference — Cynthia Schwartzberg & Cherie Lindberg
From Freeze to Thaw: Unlocking Trauma in the Body — Serene Calkins & Mary Jane O’Rourke
From Freeze to Thaw: The Next Level — Serene Calkins & Mary Jane O’Rourke
Shame: The Land Between Living & Dying — Steve Sawyer
Digging Roots Foundations — Steve Sawyer
Digging Roots: The Developmental Trauma Model of Brainspotting 1.0 — Steve Sawyer
Digging Roots: The Developmental Trauma Model of Brainspotting 2.0 — Steve Sawyer
Intensive Digging Roots Developmental Trauma Model of Brainspotting — Steve Sawyer
Brainspotting, Spirituality & Intuition
Brainspotting, Spirituality, and Intuition — Cherie Lindberg & Heather Corbet
Spirituality & Brainspotting Advanced Consultation Group — Cynthia Schwartzberg
Spirituality & Brainspotting Consultation Groups — Heather Corbet
Your Soul & Brainspotting (9-month Consultation Group) — Heather Corbet
Reiki & Brainspotting — Heather Corbet
NeuroSoulmatic Alchemy — Nancy Tung
Harmonic Brain Healing — Cynthia Schwartzberg
Harmonic Brain Healing 2.0 — Cynthia Schwartzberg
Brainspotting Embodied Learning Circles — Nancy Tung & Joy Myong
Consultant-in-Training Program (1 year) — Cynthia Schwartzberg
Brainspotting Intensive — Cynthia Schwartzberg
How to Do an Intensive — Lisa Larson
Expansion Brainspotting — Lisa Larson
Brainspotting Consultant — Cynthia Schwartzberg
Brain Science to Inform Your Brainspotting Practice — Deb Antinori
Neurobiology of Trauma and Healing in Psychotherapy — Damir del Monte
Brainspotting & Ketamine — Mariya Javed-Payne
The Curious Voyage to Authenticity — Cynthia Schwartzberg
Phases 1–5
Brainspotting and Parts
Harmonic Brain Healing
Brainspotting with Relationships
Neurosoulmatic Alchemy (3 day)
Digging Roots 1.0
Digging Roots 2.0
Personal Background
Born in Brooklyn, New York, I spent my childhood there before moving to California. As a mother of three adult daughters and a long-time student of Buddhism, I find deep connection in nature—especially the ocean—and regularly participate in silent meditation retreats with my spiritual community (sangha).
Professional Journey & Impact
With 34 years of experience working with trauma across schools, treatment programs, and child welfare agencies, I have dedicated my career to systemic change.
- Award Winning: Recipient of the NACO award for the Parents in Partnership program.
- Leadership: Led teams to develop innovative programs now replicated across the US.
- Macro to Micro: Transitioned from large-scale systemic roles to private practice to focus on deep, transformative healing at its roots.
Personal Background
I was born in Brooklyn, New York, where I spent my childhood before moving to California. I am the mother of three adult daughters. I have been a student of Buddhism and a member of a weekly meeting sangha (a spiritual community) with whom I enjoy regular silent meditation retreats, for many years. I experience deep connection in nature and especially at the ocean.
Professional Journey & Impact
I have spent 34 years working with trauma across diverse settings—including schools, adolescent treatment programs, group homes, family support agencies, and several public child welfare agencies, while also maintaining a private practice. I had many direct service and administrative roles in my 20+ year child welfare career. I worked with community partners and governmental agencies to create and enhance collaboration and participated in and led teams to develop innovative public child welfare programs that are being replicated in the United States, as well as changing state legislation. These programs redesigned systemic approaches to better support vulnerable children and their families, decrease time spent in out-of-home (“foster”) care, increase children’s connection to their families, created permanent families for children, increased oversight of mental health services to youth in foster care who suffer the greatest struggles, including programs to provide thorough oversight of youth prescribed psychotropic medications and implementing and overseeing all LA County psychiatric hospital discharge planning conferences. I initiated a collaboration with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, where I led a team to implement an outreach program for parents incarcerated in all of the Los Angeles County jails and coordinated much media coverage of this program. I was awarded the coveted National Association of Counties (NACO) award for the development of the Parents in Partnership program – a peer mentorship program. I found the ripple impact of this macro work quite rewarding. I had also been often frustrated by the lack of access to deep healing services, understanding that healing is the key to breaking the generational cycles of the trauma. This realization led me to fully devote my work to private practice—where I could focus on supporting profound, transformative healing at its roots.