Kaori Wander かおり LCPC BSP EMDR CYT
she • they

Granddaughter
Brainspotting consultant | Art therapist

BWITI Initiate: Student of Iboga
Death care & dream work medium
Yoga teacher

 

I am committed to embodied (un)learning, repair and growth for a post-colonial & post-scarcity planet. I enjoy sound healing, forest bathing, collecting rocks, reading, jumping and trees. I love animals and moss. I am a painter, a skydiver and a lover of all things miniature. I love xmas elves like I love the Philippines, where I grew up. I love grandparents.

I am an art therapist and certified-Brainspotting consultant trained in EMDR and Heartmath+. My therapy work is strongly informed by my studies with Earth medicines and on death care and yoga teaching. I am biologically rooted in Japan, and raised in Southeast Asia (Manila, Singapore). English is my second, and now my primary language.

I practice neurophysiological approaches (Brainspotting, Somatic Archæology™) to listen to each person’s ecosystem that is strengthened or burdened by ancestral legacies and shaped by heteronormative or neurotypical expectations, current socio-political and ecological conditions.

Alongside clinical trainings and trauma research, I am a dedicated to the Bwiti teachings of Iboga, an ancient Earth medicine in West Africa. Iboga strengthens me in the weaving arts of mediumship, ancestral relations and psychotherapy. I bliss out to hot yoga, Reiki and the Cosmic Records everyday to ground and care for my care work.

My role is not a job. This is a practice and way of life passed down to me through the Love of my Grandparents, and therefore I hold my work+life integration very close to my heart. This is our walk home.

Brainspotting Trainings and Practicums

I am a year round student & participant with minimum 3-4 trainings a year, and receiving my own Brainspotting therapy work.

BSP Consultant, Certified Brainspotter since 2018
Experiential learning through dyad practices and as Demo client in multiple trainings

  • BSP V 2025 with David Grand PhD

  • BSP I, II, III, IV (all in-person)

  • BSP Masters BIPOC, David Grand PhD

  • BSP Masters, David Grand PhD (demo client)

  • BSP Consultations with Tracy Gantlin-Monroy LPC

  • BSP Poets & Writers with Serene Calkin PT & Kristy Snedden LCSW

  • BSP Generational work and Somatic Archaeology™, Ruby Gibson PhD

  • BSP Attachment and Caregivers, Jen Delaney, LPC

  • BSP Developmental Trauma & Attachment, Steve Sawyer LCSW

  • BSP Perinatal: Connecting the Rainbow, Jana Glass LPC

  • BSP Limbic Counter-transference, Cynthia Schwartzberg, LCSW

  • BSP with Expansion in Creativity and Performance, Lisa Larson LMFT

  • BSP & Imago: Couples Co-Regulation, Cherie Lindberg LPC

  • BSP with Addictions, Roby Abeles PhD

Clinical Trainings & Continued Edu.

  • Death Doula & Dream Work with Elizabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation of Mexico

  • Embodied Social Justice, by Rev. angel Kyodo williams

  • Ethical Psychedelic Care, Synthesis Institute

  • IFS-informed Psychedelics Assisted Therapy with Nick Bruss LCSW & Lauren Taus LCSW

  • EMDR training with EMDRIA, Paula Merucci LCSW

  • HeartMath+ The Resilient Heart Trauma Sensitive certification

  • Art Therapy consultations by Haley Fox PhD LMHC ATR-BCCS MT-BC REAT

  • C-DBT, Certified in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy

  • EFIT, Emotion Focused Individual Therapy

  • Body Talk Access

  • 200hr Certified Yoga Teacher

  • Reiki III

  • School of the Art Institute of Chicago, MA in Art Therapy 2014

  • 10 years of post-graduate clinical work include IOP, PHP, inpatient levels of care providing interdisciplinary evidence-based treatments for addictions, mood and co-occuring diagnoses, OCD, schizophrenia and chronic mental illnesses, vocational and homelessness care.

    Behavioral health clinician at regional hospital group. Administrative and clinical role in non-profit addictions clinic. Art therapy work in juvenile detention center and veterans housing & vocational agency. Private practice since 2018 alongside other employment sites such as with therapy agencies, yoga teaching, reiki, and consulting.