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Kathryn’s Bio
Kathryn Fentress did her graduate work in clinical
psychology at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.
She graduated with her Ph.D. in 1971 with an emphasis in
Humanistic Psychology. She relocated to West Palm Beach,
Florida to work at one of the first Community Mental Health
Care Centers in the country. There she was involved in
training and supervising volunteers and paraprofessionals in
crisis work and suicide prevention. She also saw individuals,
couples and families in the outpatient program, provided
psychotherapy and assessments for inpatients, taught
parenting classes, and was a consultant to the Substance
Abuse Treatment Program.
Kathryn and her family moved to California in 1974 to live in
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an intentional community. While there she volunteered at the Oakland's Women's Health Care Center and
began to explore her spirituality in a more committed way. Meditation and living in tune with the land, the
weather, nature, and community provided a grounding for her spiritual values.
In 1975 the family moved on to San Diego where Kathryn eventually served as a counselor and then
program director for a drop in facility for youth at risk. Her job duties included working with the teens and
their families, training volunteers, and doing outreach to other agencies in the community.
Kathryn relocated next to Missoula, MT in 1978 looking to raise her children out of the city and in a safer
environment. She also went hoping to connect with Native Americans to learn more about their spiritual
practices and their connection to spirit through nature. Within a few months she was hired as a
psychologist for the Confederated Tribes of the Salish and Kootenai People. For the next 6 years she
worked with Native programs counseling, training, and supervising in the Indian Health Clinic and the
Alcohol Treatment Program.
She enjoyed this work and the people were accepting and gracious to her. She was eventually invited to
attend medicine ceremonies, powwows, and sweat lodges. Kathryn received many psychological and
spiritual gifts from these ceremonies including lasting friendships. She also became clear that she was not
to pursue further training in shamanism but instead to broaden her exploration of mystical experience.
In 1983 she and nine other women created a spiritual circle to explore accessing direct spiritual experience
through the use of ritual, ceremony, guided meditation and trance states. This group met weekly for two
years and Kathryn became very practiced at guiding others in deep visualization work. At the same time
numbers of clients came to her that wanted to heal deep childhood wounds and were open to the inner
journeying needed to effect significant psychological change. It was in this phase of her development as a
psychotherapist that she recognized the power of the trance states of consciousness in combination with
a spiritual framework that allowed for the effects of trauma to be dramatically mitigated.
Kathryn moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1985 to do a sabbatical at Naropa University and ended up staying
there another nine years. These years were very expansive both professionally and spiritually.
On the professional front, Kathryn set up a private practice and became involved teaching and supervising
interns at Boulder Graduate School. BGS was a Master’s level program that granted degrees in
Transpersonal Psychology and Holistic Health. She became Department Chairperson for the years 1990
and 1991 and helped design the transpersonal curriculum that was eventually adopted by Naropa in 1993
after BGS closed. She then taught courses at Naropa.
Kathryn also received training in EMDR (see link on home page) and added this powerful technique to her
set of tools for dealing with the effects of trauma. She took training with Carl Hollander in Psychodrama
and other courses in the use of hypnosis for healing abuse issues.
On the spiritual front Kathryn took a year long study with the Tibetan Foundation in Denver, Colorado.
This group had two missions: 1) to clear unconscious programming or limiting beliefs; and 2) to open to
channeling higher wisdom from spiritual guides or from our own souls. This program assisted in
developing her intuition, understanding the complexity of unconscious programming, and working with the
energy body as part of the healing journey.
In 1994 Kathryn relocated to Bellingham, WA to be near the sea and to put down roots. Almost
immediately she was invited to work with people of the Lummi, Upper Skagit, and Swinomish Tribes.
Through this work she developed a specialty in healing trauma: especially sexual trauma, childhood abuse,
and trauma from domestic violence.
Kathryn now serves as a Native American specialist to other counselors and case managers working with
Native children. She is a clinical supervisor for Evergreen AIDS Foundation, and supervises graduate
students and professionals in the community. She continues to bring a transpersonal perspective to all
her work and is deeply committed to her own spiritual unfolding.
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