We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Bryant will be one of our keynote speakers in Cleveland this September. Dr. Bryant is President Elect of the American Psychological Association, the largest professional organization representing psychology. It includes more than 121,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, and students as its members.

In explaining why we were turning toward her for this important spot, we explained that our energy medicine practitioners have powerful techniques for regulating the nervous system, but not necessarily a psychological perspective on trauma. Trauma is Dr. Bryant’s specialty. We asked her to address this question: “What are the most important insights into trauma that psychology has to offer for healers who are working on physical issues with traumatized individuals who aren’t in psychotherapy? “

The second reason we are turning to her, we wrote (not really expecting the head of the APA to be able to work us into her schedule), is "because of your spiritual background and orientation, we feel you would be able to bridge from psychology to energy medicine in a manner many of our psychologist colleagues could not. As we are sure you know, energy work is itself a bridge into spirituality, and many of our practitioners have a well-grounded relationship with soul-deep realms of the human psyche. Your work with sacred dance, sacred artistry, 'tweets for the soul' and 'clinical interventions that incorporate art, music, movement, and poetry' will immediately endear you to our audience."

The third significant reason we told her that we are inviting her is diversity. We don’t know the racial, ethnic, or social backgrounds of most of the 200,000-plus people who have enrolled themselves to receive our free monthly e-letter and wealth of free online resources, but the vast majority of the people who come to our live classes are white, middle-aged women.  We are making efforts to broaden the scope of those we serve with outreach, scholarships, and other “bottom-up” measures.  We closed with these words: “The Energy Fest is our premiere event, and we would be so honored to have you as one of the four keynote speakers!”

Dr. Bryant responded by accepting and suggesting this title for her talk: “Embodied Healing: Integrating Trauma Psychology, Culture, and Spirituality.”  We are thrilled!