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Meet the team at SomaPsych
Driven by desire & purpose to create a trauma informed world in all that we do.
Amanda holds over 500 hours in trauma-informed trainings, including social justice and inclusivity. As a Certified Nutritionist and somatic practitioner, her focus is nervous system support and hormonal balancing through a whole-being approach. Amanda is a registered Psychology (Hons) student and holds regular workshops and trainings with an emphasis on trauma-informed facilitation, resilience, nervous system regulation, neuroscience and embodied practices. Amanda’s passion lies in knowing the sacred responsibility facilitators of any space or experience hold. Through her work, she helps people discover their power and voice within their offering while ensuring it is done with respect, kindness, informed intention, and evidence-based knowledge. The intention behind humanistic and trauma-informed offerings is to open a conversation and deepen the understanding of what stress, adversity and trauma are, how it manifests differently from person to person, and how we can more bravely hold safer spaces for all.
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Amanda Hanna (she / her)
SomaPsych Director & Creator
MA Psych Student | BA Psych | Certified Mindfulness & Meditation Teacher Trainer | TCTSY-F, E-RYT, YACEP | Certified Holistic Nutritionist
An advocate for all things sustainability, Esther is passionate about what we do and how we do it. She holds 100hrs of Trauma-Informed Yin Yoga Teacher Training, and believes in accessibility and inclusivity in all areas of life. Her Master’s in Sustainable Practice only further highlighted the need for holistic integration of empowerment via knowledge with sustainable embodied practices towards living well in the world. Her current studies in Theology support her visions of stepping into a future that is more equitable, as we learn how to love others, self and our world well.
Esther loves her work with SomaPsych, supporting people and diving into grants and funding applications to enable this work to be accessed by marginalised communities, or those who would otherwise face barriers to accessing this work. It’s a privilege to support education that plants seeds and witness these grow into unique and beautiful trees. Esther is the person to contact regarding your scholarship application, registration issues, or where we can bring this training to your community.
Esther Wood (she / her)
Administration Officer
Fiona's curious nature has meant that she has always challenged the 'normal' ways of doing things from an early age. She is passionate about living an integral life whereby human health, environmental health, and holistic ways of being and doing are held with the upmost importance.
Her personal studies in yoga, meditation and somatics has had a profound impact on how she navigates the world. Fiona enjoys to facilitate and share the practice of yoga, particuarly yin yoga. Her young busy mind 15 years ago would never have thought she would be practicing & sharing the slow and introspective practice of yin yoga, but Fiona has found yin yoga to be very transformational, allowing her to deepen her relationship with mind and body, build tools to regulate her nervous system, find more comfort in the body, and clarity in the mind.
After Fiona completed her studies in Business & Marketing in the United Kingdom, she quickly became very disheartened by an industry that thrives off taking advantage of our human-ness. Fiona joined SomaPsych in its early stages, when we were named The Self Agency Academy. She is very grateful to be able to work in Marketing & Communications, taking a trauma informed and humanized approach in all that she does.
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Fiona Aspdin (she / her)
Marketing & Communications Coordinator
Emily found yoga and mindfulness practises when navigating her teenage years. It was through these teachings that she learnt to connect to herself and the world more deeply. More naturally aligned to the striving part of her being, she found movement and breath to be a way to ground and move through life more intentionally. With age came the realisation and need for more stillness. Yin yoga and somatic practises now form a large part of her personal practise. Emily has completed 200 hours of yoga facilitator training, and 100 hours of trauma-informed yoga facilitator training. In her capacity as a facilitator she is passionate about creating accessible, safer spaces for everyone to feel apart of.
Emily has sailed the corporate and public service seas to date. She has worked across a number of different organisations in the finance, assurance and risk areas. While the corporate world has been of service, it is not where her true essence is aligned. She is grateful for the opportunity to work with SomaPsych in the Finance Assistant capacity. She continues to learn, develop and apply the skills and knowledge from her corporate career into causes that more closely represent her true self.
Emily Barnsley (she / her)
Finance Assistant
Meet SomaPsych's Partners
Kirsten Wilkinson is the Founder and Executive Director of Legacy Motion. Kirsten has over 20 years of working with moving bodies, trauma, and building trauma informed curriculum. Legacy Motion is an NGO that supports individuals and communities impacted by trauma by offering sustainable programing and trainings to community members in trauma informed, restorative movement based practices and somatic therapy modalities. Each program and project honors traditional healing methods, supports the collective human experience, and provides learning opportunities to aid in accessible and equitable mental healthcare through the mind/body connection. She is also the founder of Healing Motion, a private practice that offers somatic coaching and embodied practices that support mental health by assisting individuals in discovering their innate wisdom, restoring their embodied strength, and transcending to holistic wellbeing, trauma, and building trauma-informed curriculum.
Kirsten Wilkinson (she / her)
LegacyMotion Director & Creator
MA, TCTSY-F, E-RYT 500, RCYT, Qi Gong and iRest Certified, Thai Yoga Massage Certified, Ayurvedic Health Practitioner, Mind/Body Practitioner, Breathe to Heal Facilitator, Somatic Experiencing Advanced Cohort