A More Beautiful Life with Kate White

Rachel Smith (they/she) is a Licensed Massage Therapist and Integrated Prenatal and Perinatal Practitioner. They grew up on unceded Monacan territory known as Charlottesville, VA and have always felt deeply rooted in the community and in the land itself, particularly the Blue Ridge mountains. Smith attended the Virginia School of Massage and completed studies there in 2002. They went on to graduate from the University of Virginia with a degree in Studies in Women and Gender. Since their late teens, Smith has been involved in anti-violence work; they helped to found the Virginia Anti-Violence Project - an organization that addresses sexual violence, intimate partner violence and hate violence in the LGBTQ community. They also served on the state board of the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance for 6 years.

After having 2 (of their 3) children, Smith shifted the focus of their commitment to helping people in a more direct, hands-on way. Their own experience of birth helped change their relationship with their body; they knew after giving birth to their first child that the experience of being able to feel and trust into their body was transformative and life-changing.  Given how challenging the prenatal and perinatal time can be, particularly for Black and Brown folx, LGBTQIA2S+ folx, neurodivergent folx and folx with disabilities, Smith knew they wanted to help other birthing parents feel supported and resourced around this tender time. They have been studying Prenatal and Perinatal Dynamics with Kate White since 2017 and have assisted in workshops and trainings she has held for participants coming from all over the world including Australia, Lebanon, Serbia, and California.
 
Smith offers in-person and zoom sessions that take a holistic, somatic, and trauma-informed approach to helping people address trauma and challenges in pursuit of living and loving their best lives.

Website: mindfulmassagecville.com

Prolyfyck Run Crew: https://prolyfyck.com/

Dr. Gauri Lowe, a medical doctor and natural birth specialist, draws on over two decades of experience supporting women. After her own homebirth during studies, she became an advocate for physiological birth, later apprenticing with a homebirth midwife to learn how to support homebirths.

Since her second son's birth (in water, at home), Dr. Gauri divides her time between South Africa and rural India, passionately supporting homebirths, teaching midwifery, and consulting in integrative women's health. Now based in South Africa with her family, she offers transformative courses, focusing on postpartum care, the Sacred Model of Birth, and reframing women's healthcare.

Dr. Lowe emphasizes holistic approaches, weaving in natural remedies and ancient healing traditions with a sound clinical background too. With 12+ years as a birth advocate, she creates safe spaces for women during childbirth.

https://www.drgaurilowe.com/

Marinah identifies as an indigiqueer chicana daughter of a spiritual, artistic mother from Chihuahua, Mexico who taught her traditional medicine, a Chicano musician and Engineer father from the borderlands, and mother to indigenous mixed-race children and grandchildren.

Marinah is the owner of Phoenix Midwife and the founder of Indigenous Birth, an umbrella organization for diverse advocacy and health justice projects which affirms the importance of traditional and indigenous midwives and assembles initiatives and coalitions nationally and internationally. She is also a sometime podcaster, public speaker and writer.

Marinah has served as consultant, facilitator, board member, Executive Director, and midwife for health justice projects in the U.S, North America, Central America, and Uganda, facilitating policy initiatives on public health responses, indigenous/immigrant reproductive and primary healthcare access, education programs, birth center development, and workforce development.

Marinah is a founding member of Phoenix Allies for Community Health, a free clinic primarily serving immigrant families, a direct result of her active street medic work. Marinah is the past president of the Midwives Alliance of North America, and worked in a dedicated coalition with national midwifery groups for United States Midwifery, Education, Regulation, and Association (USMERA).

Marinah is a Culture of Health Leader, advisory board member for Birth Detroit, Team Leader for an all POC midwifery learning collaborative in Arizona through a project initiated by the Institute of Medicaid Innovation, working alongside native and indigenous immigrant communities on reclamation of birth sovereignty, and planning essential convenings for midwives and healers.

Marinah is a practitioner in Somatic Experiencing, with advancing certification in the prenatal and perinatal period, as part of her dedication to traditional medicine and healing.

Marinah is the past Director of Organizational Wellness with Birth Center Equity, and is currently under Fellowship.

Marinah’s current roles, besides the multiple projects of Indigenous Birth, focus primarily in facilitation with Breath of My Heart Birthplace, the only Native-led nonprofit free standing birth center in the United States, Center for Indigenous Midwifery, learning indigenous data collection in partnership with The Firelight Group, and working with her traditional teachers in Mexico learning traditional medicine, and creating artistic and medicinal resources.

Website: https://www.indigenousbirth.org/

Contact: [email protected]

Ashley Brichter is a life-long educator, birth worker, consultant, and entrepreneur. In addition to improving maternal health, she is a champion for systemic reforms to improve the lives of families by rebalancing the division of labor at home and funding parental leave, universal health care, and progressive early childhood education. Despite her experience with hundreds of families as a doula, lactation counselor, and birth educator – like so many, her first birth did not “go as planned.” Better for it, she founded Birthsmarter in 2019, which provides unbiased, inclusive, and award-winning practical wisdom and guidance to the next generation of families. Ashley was born and raised in New York City, is a proud Bi-Co graduate, and currently lives in Salt Lake City where she has learned to love camping with her husband and two amazing kids. She is a Certified Fair Play Facilitator, a Tory Burch Fellow, and she sits on the board of ProNatal Fitness.

https://birthsmarter.com/

After spending her early career in the corporate world Lynn transitioned into the field of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology after becoming a parent. She currently supports adults and families with early attachment trauma histories and is serving as the Vice President on the Board of Directors at APPPAH.

She is a graduate of the Castellino Foundations training as well as a Prenatal and Perinatal Educator from the Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH).

She has also completed the Castellino Family Practitioner Training and is on staff of the Building & Enhancing Bonding and Attachment Clinic (BEBA). She is working towards becoming a certified Womb Surround Process Facilitator.

She is a certified practitioner of NARM (Nuero Affective Relational Model) which helps integrate early childhood survival strategies. She holds a certificate in Trauma Informed Somatic Therapy and is a facilitator of the Circle of Security Parenting Program.

Her greatest joy is spending time with her family. She is the proud mom of three grown children and lives with her husband in Boulder Colorado.

Margery Segal LPC, RSMT, IDME, PPN is the founder of the Whole Movement Center PLLC located in Austin, Texas. She has spent the last 20 years teaching her embodied approach to pre/perinatal psychology and somatic attachment and bonding in Brasil, Australia, Canada and Texas. She works with individuals, families, couples, infants, children, and people of all ages on early developmental attachment trauma and the art of creating fulfilling relationships. She integrates Dance & Theater, Body-Mind Centering®, Somatic Experiencing, Developmental Movement, and Prenatal Birth Attachment Therapy into experiential sessions and workshops. Her workshops provide a fun therapeutic experiential approach to a depth of neurobiological and body-mind concepts that help students transform and grow. She currently is enrolling women in Her year-long Whole Movement Embodiment Body Recovery Program. This is an online group program (with an in-person intensive) for women who are seeking to recover from a major transition such as caretaking, illness, aging or loss, or any major life change that has affected their relationship with their body. I invite participants who want to commit to learning a somatic movement and therapeutic approach to recovering a new sense of self, while becoming re-embodied and personally empowered as they move forward in their lives.

Email:   [email protected]

Website: www.wholemovementcenter.com

Episode 64: Klaus Evertz, Art, Body, Psychotherapist and Writer in Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology

Klaus Evertz, lecturer, works as psycho-, art- and body therapist in own office and Center for Palliative Medicine, University Hospital Cologne. Painter and cultural psychologist. Research in Images as Forms of Consciousness. Lectureships at the Universities Cologne and Dresden, the University for Environment and Economy (Depart. Art Therapy) Nuertingen and the Dr.Mildred-Scheel-Academy, Cologne. His main work is a design of a Prenatal Aesthetic in Kunstanalyse (Art Analysis) (2002). Editor of „Lehrbuch fuer Praenatale Psychologie (Textbook for Prenatal Psychology)“, Mattes, Heidelberg (2014) and "Handbook of Prenatal Psychology", Springer, New York (2020). Coauthor of „Lehrbuch für Palliativmedizin (Textbook for Palliative Medicine“, Schattauer, Stuttgart (1997, 2007, 2011). His pioneering re-search on pre- and perinatal trauma and transgenerational trauma has potential applications for psycho-, art- and bodytherapists helping to identify the effects of these traumata on mental health and behaviour. Since 1997 Member of the Advisory Board of „International Journal of Peri- and Prenatal Psychology and Medicine“, since 2007 Member of the Board of Associate Editors. He is Past-vice-president of the International Society for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine (ISPPM).

Institut for Arttherapy and Artanalysis Cologne

Neusser Str. 569

50737 Köln/Cologne

Germany

Tel./Fax 0049 – 221 5509156

E-mail: [email protected]

klausevertz.de

This interview is part of the preparation for the series: Supporting Families to Integrate their Birth and Early Experiences, that is a fundraiser for the clinic that is run by Tara and Mary, the Building and Enhancing Bonding and Attachment Clinic.  

Tara Blasco has a Ph.D in prenatal and perinatal psychology from the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, and has worked at the BEBA clinic since 2001. Currently she is the Director of the BEBA clinic and works as a facilitator . She is a certified craniosacral therapist. She is a psychologist in her country of origin, Spain. She is a Certified Womb Surround Process Workshop facilitator through Castellino training. She co-teaches Dr. Castellino’s Foundation Training in Spain and in the US together with Ray Castellino and Mary Jackson.

With her husband Lyn, she co-directs the non-profit organization Global Resource Alliance dedicated to the alleviation of poverty and disease by supporting communities in the Mara region of Tanzania.

Mary Jackson, RN, LM, RCST has been a home birth midwife since 1975. She was one of the women who brought midwifery back to life in California in the '70's. Her work encompasses prenatal care, home birth, postpartum care and birth trauma resolution. She incorporates Craniosacral Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, Circle of Security and Castellino PPN training into her work as a midwife. She is one of the co-teachers of the Castellino Foundation Training and is a Certified Womb Surround Process Workshop Facilitator. Mary was an adjunct faculty member for eight years at the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute and has been the President of the BEBA clinic since 2003. Her focus is on assisting babies and parents to integrate the birth experience in order to strengthen their relationships. A national and international speaker, Mary strives to educate people around the world about birth and how it can impact their lives forever.

Read the research project published by the Castellino Group, Supporting Families to Integrate Their Birth Experiences. 

See more about their practitioner training at Castellino Training. They have new trainings forming for this year and in 2025.

Freddy is an inspirational and transformational speaker, mentor, personal trainer, educator, author, and founder of The Love No Ego Foundation,lnc. rginia. 

 Freddy's  Love...No Ego philosophy serves as the foundation for pushing the human spirit into greatness. He helps clients to remove biases, fear, and judgement, while simultaneously igniting their intuition to produce monumental results!

 Approaching a decade of experience, Freddy has delivered powerful, engaging, and relevant presentations, mentored, consulted, and conducted workshops for individuals, teams, and organizations nationally and internationally.

 Freddy utilizes and demonstrates his pillars and  principles to enable participants to grow and perform better than their everyday pressures and gain optimal performance, personally as well as professionally. His approach improves their overall awareness and sustainability, promotes self and team development, helps them to notice the ego and where the limitations are, and gets committed to living a life of resilency!

​Freddy currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with his wife of three years, Emily. He loves being a dedicated husband and bonus Dad to his step-son, Jaxson!

EM: [email protected]
O: (434) 262-0442

Watch this video:
LOVE NO EGO: BE HUMAN!

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Olga is a prenatal psychologist, researcher, author of books, editor of collective authorship projects, Editor of the academic journal, designer of educational programmes in Prenatal Sciences, Professional Education Trainer of many successful educational courses in the field of prenatal psychology internationally. Olga created the Programme Health Promotion "WELCOME" for pregnant couples with a focus on the (unborn) baby. Her vision/ mission is to synthesize and organize the acquired knowledge in the field of Prenatal Sciences and bridge the Academia with the professionals in the field of Prenatal Psychology.

She has done tremendous things in the world, including organizing the Prenatal Sciences Partnership International Congress and various research projects you can see at https://www.prenatalsciencespartnership.org/.

She also is the mastermind and educator behind online education in prenatal and perinatal psychology at prenatalsciences.org

She has edited books and articles, and is a joy to work with. See more at her websites.