Serving Sonoma County, California
Amanda WoodCertified
Amanda Wood is a native Forestvillain — born and raised in West County, Sonoma County — with a rogue streak in her hair and in her manner of living. She has a penchant for world travel, backroads, amazing food, and submerging in natural bodies of water. Over the years she has worked in nonprofit development at home and abroad and spent a decade alongside teenagers in foster care.
2020 set her on a home-bound trajectory that led her to Western Herbalism and to two rapidly effective, highly badass healing modalities: ERT and EFT Tapping — now her primary offerings as Transformative Experiences. As a certified ERT practitioner, she studied with Pat Jackman in 2022–2023 and EFT Tapping with Sonya Sophia in 2024.
With 20+ years in 12-step recovery, 10+ years in trauma-informed residential treatment with foster teens, 5+ years practicing somatic release therapies, and 40+ years as a West County hippie, Amanda knows in her bones how to sit with the fury, grief, terror, or anything that feels too big, too scary, or too dark to be seen. She'll hold your heart while you open the door, and together you'll meet whatever has been waiting with deep compassion and true care. Borrowing a line from The Bengsons, she likes to remind people that there's light to be found down in the depths, once your eyes adjust. (She's also VERY fun.)
Serving Oakland, California
Batul True HeartCertified
Batul True Heart (they/them) is a 2Spirit-Yaqui, Chicane, and Panamanian certified ERT practitioner based on Lisjan Ohlone Land in Oakland, California. With nearly 20 years of personal and ancestral healing work, Batul brings a deeply rooted, nature-based perspective to their practice — shaped by the guidance of elders, mentors, and direct lineage from their ancestors and the plants.
A traditional medicine practitioner, community herbalist, and death companion, Batul spent five years as lead facilitator of the Curanderx Toolkit class at Ancestral Apothecary School in Oakland. They hold ceremonial space working with Mexican traditional healing modalities and offer Maaso Medicina — a line of mostly homegrown herbal remedies for ancestral, generational, and personal pain.
Batul also co-leads Floripondio End of Life Planning & Services, a community project offering culturally-conscious death companionship for QTBIPOC and comrades.
Serving Minneapolis, Minnesota
Christine BergesonCertified
Christine found ERT in 2014, the same year she discovered tarot, doula work, and herbalism. She had just moved to Minneapolis and was on her own in the city for the first time, following where her heart led. By 2017, she had decided to enroll in the ERT school, moving to California for a year to learn and practice.
The work shifted her sense of self profoundly. She learned to stop compartmentalizing her feelings and instead to honor, integrate, and accept even the darkest parts of herself. Her social anxiety eased, her sense of self solidified, and she became a more whole version of herself.
Christine works from a safety-first standpoint, creating a safe and trusting environment for every session. “This is your body, this is your session, you're in control here,” she offers. “I'm simply here to witness whatever you need to express.” She works with all kinds of people, and has held space for many cancer survivors, those moving through deep grief, and folks who have experienced miscarriage or hysterectomy.
The way Christine shows up is shaped by a grounded, embodied worldview: that we are earthly beings having an earthly experience, with no bypassing allowed. Our cells and bodies change over time, and the work, as she sees it, is to move with that energy and let it move through us.
Christine holds her ERT certification (2018) and has been practicing ever since, along with an urban herbalist certification (2015), a doula certification (2015), and a BA in English Literature (2011).
Serving Central Oregon
Denise KimballCertified
Denise Kimball is an Emotional Release Therapy (ERT) practitioner and somatic therapist based in Central Oregon.
As a therapist, Denise was drawn to ERT while searching for a modality that aligned with her belief that healing involves more than insight alone. While she values the power of conversation, she became increasingly interested in approaches that work directly with the body and the nervous system.
Both her personal healing journey and work with clients reinforced a simple truth: lasting transformation often happens when emotions are given the opportunity to be fully processed and released. Today, Denise helps clients release emotional blocks, move through life's challenges with greater ease, and reconnect with their innate resilience, authenticity, and aliveness.
Serving Sonoma County, California
Erin HatleyCertified
Erin comes from a childhood filled with trauma, raised by a deeply narcissistic mother who struggled with drinking, and a father who wasn’t present and struggled with drugs. For much of her life she felt as though she was in the wrong, never quite worthy, never sure her thoughts or opinions mattered. Through her own ERT sessions, she has been able to go into those dark places within herself, find the fractured pieces waiting there, and bring them into the light, offering the little versions of herself the validation and love she didn’t receive all those years ago.
That work has changed how she sees her own parenting, and how she sees the hurt in the world. Erin believes we are all just wounded children, and that when we lash out or repeat old patterns, it’s that little kid inside running the show. She has gotten closer and closer to running her own, and describes taking the reins of your life into your own hands as a beautiful feeling. Her hope is to help others find theirs, so their inner child can fly free.
A certified ERT practitioner, Erin has worked with a wide range of people, including mothers and older teens, and has had particular success working with former military members.
Serving Sebastopol, California
Kamala CromptonCertified
Kamala met Pat Jackman twenty-five years ago and was part of the very first ERT school twenty years ago. Since then, as a certified ERT practitioner, she has assisted Pat and helped co-evolve the work alongside her, growing into the depth and structure ERT holds today.
In her work with others, Kamala's primary focus is bringing presence and deep listening, so people can feel into everything they're holding in their bodies. Her hope is that each person she works with can reclaim their most authentic, free, innocent, and loving self. She is happy to work with anyone.
Kamala has spent most of her life working in landscape gardening, and draws much of her inspiration from that work—the reminder that we are all beautiful, simply as we are, in nature.
Serving Northern Utah
Kari HollidayCertified
Kari Holliday is a certified life coach, licensed massage therapist, Structural Integration practitioner, and trained Emotional Release practitioner through Pat Jackman. She offers Emotional Release sessions from her home in Northern Utah.
Kari is passionate about helping people reconnect with themselves in a safe, compassionate, and judgment-free environment. Known for her calm presence, deep listening, and genuine care, she strives to help clients gently uncover and release emotions so they can experience greater peace, healing, and freedom.
Serving Reno, Nevada
Leila NakamotoCertified
Leila's path to becoming a somatic therapist began with her own healing journey. When she first came across Pat Jackman's work, she was deeply moved. Something about the approach resonated with her, and she knew she needed to experience it for herself.
Like many people, life's experiences had left Leila carrying stress, turmoil, and emotional numbness. For years, she found herself disconnected from her feelings. She remembers setting out with one simple goal: she wanted to cry. That desire became the beginning of reconnecting with herself and discovering the profound wisdom held within the body.
Leila believes healing begins with feeling safe enough to reconnect with ourselves. Her work as a somatic therapist is rooted in the understanding that our bodies hold valuable wisdom, and that lasting change comes through cultivating awareness, compassion, and resilience—not by forcing change, but by listening deeply.
Her approach is collaborative, trauma-informed, and centered on each person's unique experience. She strives to create a warm, respectful, nonjudgmental environment where clients feel seen, heard, and empowered to move at a pace that feels right for them. She believes every person has an innate capacity for healing, and her role is to support that process with curiosity, compassion, and presence.
In April 2025, Leila completed Emotional Release Therapy training with Pat Jackman, further deepening her understanding of the mind-body connection and expanding her ability to support clients through a holistic, trauma-informed lens. This training strengthened her appreciation for the resilience of the human spirit and the body's remarkable capacity to heal.
Whether you are seeking relief from overwhelm, hoping to build a more connected relationship with yourself, or looking to process difficult experiences, Leila would be honored to walk alongside you. Together, you can create a space where healing unfolds with greater ease, vitality, self-awareness, and hope.
Serving Nashville, Tennessee
Liz PisarczykCertified
Liz Pisarczyk first encountered ERT in late summer of 2023, when one of Pat Jackman's videos stopped her in her tracks. It wasn't just curiosity — it was a full-body, soul-level recognition that she had to experience this work for herself.
In February 2024 she attended her first four-day ERT workshop, and it changed her. For the first time, she truly met herself — connecting with Little Me, listening to and holding space for the parts of her that had been silent for so long, and letting her real voice rise to the surface after years of suppression. It was raw, it was deep, and it cracked her open in the best way.
That experience was just the beginning. She has since committed to going deeper, training to become an ERT facilitator, and feels grateful and honored to walk this path — not only for herself, but for everyone ready to meet themselves in this profound way.
Serving Santa Rosa, California
Marci LaGrandeCertified
Born and raised in Northern California, Marci's path to becoming an Emotional Release Therapist was born from her own profound healing journey.
Growing up in a home deeply impacted by addiction, severe neglect, and domestic abuse, she learned at an early age that survival meant disconnecting from herself. She became an expert at refusing to acknowledge the parts of her that were crying out for help, distracting herself from the parts that were begging to be seen, and numbing away the parts that carried deep feelings of abandonment, shame, and unworthiness. For years, these strategies helped, but they also created a deep sense of disconnection within herself.
Determined to create a different life for her beautiful son Mateo, and finally break generations of trauma and unnecessary suffering, this is when she was called to Emotional Release Therapy (ERT).
Through this work, she began to gradually let go of the defenses that had once made her feel safe. As those walls came down, she was finally able to witness these parts of herself with compassion and love. Instead of continuing to abandon her inner child, she began rebuilding a loving relationship with the little girl she had left behind all those years ago. This has been the greatest gift of her healing journey and continues to shape the way she supports others today.
Her approach to Emotional Release Therapy is deeply intuitive, compassionate, and Spirit-led. She enters every session with nothing more than her full presence and a pure intention to serve each client's highest good. She trusts that Spirit will guide each session exactly as it needs to go. Her hope is that each person leaves their session not only feeling lighter, but also more connected to their own inner wisdom and intuition.
She believes our purpose in this human experience is to truly feel our emotions deeply, and experience life fully. Yet when painful experiences become too overwhelming, we develop remarkably intelligent ways to protect ourselves—through numbing, distracting, avoiding, or suppressing these emotions. While they may help us in the short term, the emotions we never release will continue to shape our beliefs, influence our decisions, and affect the relationships we create.
What she loves most about ERT is how incredibly raw and vulnerable it is. Every session is unique, and it is an honor to witness others finally feeling safe enough to express parts of themselves they may not have even known they were holding onto, and to finally live a life that's no longer driven by their unresolved wounds.
In addition to being a certified Emotional Release Therapy practitioner, Marci is certified in Plant Medicine Guide-ship and Facilitation, Reiki Levels I and II, and holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Services from the University of San Francisco.
Healing isn't about becoming someone new—it's about remembering who you were before the world taught you to disconnect from yourself.
Serving Nashville, Tennessee · Tulum, Mexico
Marissa Abisai CejaCertified
Marissa Abisai Ceja is a Certified ERT practitioner serving Nashville, TN, and Tulum, Mexico. She works with women carrying trauma in the body, including physical and sexual trauma—often high-functioning, capable women who have done the cognitive work and still feel the tension, vigilance, and disconnect that talk therapy hasn't reached.
Her practice is trauma-informed and body-based, using breath, somatic release, sound, and nervous system regulation to move what has been held. Sessions move at a pace the body sets, with feeling and speaking both part of the work.
She trained in ERT with Pat Jackman and is currently studying Core Energetics with Stuart Black. Her broader training includes work with Dan Brulé, Kute Blackson, Sadhguru, Chris Keener, and Bibi Brzozka, along with ancestral lineage certification with medicine woman Lolita Vargas Martínez. Sessions are private and one-on-one, in English and Spanish.
Serving Caledon, Ontario · Toronto, Ontario · New Jersey
Nav BainsCertified
Nav Bains is a somatic practitioner and founder of ibringmehome Wellness, based in Toronto with clients around the world. Her work centers on nervous system regulation and pattern recalibration at the subcortical level, going beneath symptom management into the tissue and PNIE system.
Nav trained with Pat Jackman in Emotional Release Bodywork, and holds additional certifications in Spinal Energetics (Levels 1 and 2), Somatic Alignment, Regression Therapy, Organ Reset, and Spiritual Hypnotherapy. She is currently completing a two-year Registered Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist certification.
Nav's approach draws on Polyvagal Theory, epigenetics, and somatic science, delivered through her own framework, the Axis Protocol.
Serving Sebastopol, California
Pat JackmanCertified
Pat Jackman, M.A., CMT, CHT, is the founder of Emotional Release Therapy and has been guiding this work for more than thirty years. She began as a counselor and social worker in 1977 and spent over two decades in that field before turning toward the body, becoming an emotional release practitioner and workshop leader in 1995.
Pat came to this work through her own healing from childhood wounds. What she found in emotional release bodywork was not a theory but a way home, and she has spent her life since learning to walk that road alongside others.
Her own contribution was to bring inner child healing into emotional release bodywork—so that the feelings surfacing through the body are met by the part of the person who first had to hold them. The release points open the door; the inner child work is who walks through it. That union is what makes ERT what it is.
Her approach is intuitive rather than diagnostic. She does not analyze; she listens, she feels, and she helps people meet the parts of themselves they had to abandon. Through the ERT School she has trained practitioners now carrying this work forward around the world, and she leads intimate live-in retreats of no more than ten people. She still takes occasional one-on-one clients.
Serving Bethesda, Maryland · Washington, DC · Northern Virginia
Raman ChhinaCertified
Raman learned about ERT while training in another modality, when a friend called it the greatest thing she had ever done. He immediately traveled to North Carolina for three individual sessions over three days, and was blown away, leaving behind some very painful childhood emotions for good. On the way home, he called Pat Jackman and signed up for the first of three four-day workshops. The last one was transformative: years of anxiety lifted, and it hasn't returned.
Raman signed up for the school on intuition, trusting spirit. Recognizing how needed this work is, and how hard it can be to find a practitioner, he chose to train in order to offer it to those seeking it. He is now a certified ERT practitioner.
It has been humbling for Raman to hold space and help people work through the unexpressed emotions that hold them back in life. He offers this work not as a business, but as a service to those who need what can't be found elsewhere.
Serving Sonoma County, California
Ray KaplanCertified
Ray Kaplan received his first session at twelve, from the same bodywork lineage that is woven into ERT. Even at that age, the experience brought him deeply into his body and connected him with parts of himself he didn't know existed. That first session informed the rest of his life, and he knew then that he wanted to learn this work and eventually offer it to others.
Since then, his life has been a healing journey, and receiving ERT sessions has remained a powerful part of that path. He earned a master's degree in Counseling and Wilderness Therapy, completed extensive training in somatic trauma healing, wilderness rites of passage work, and various forms of bodywork, and finally had the privilege of graduating from Pat Jackman's ERT School in 2019 as a certified ERT practitioner.
Offering this work is what his heart most wants to do. After many years of being supported as he walked through his own fire, he now brings an embodied presence and a heart broken open to accompany others to whatever depths they need to go. He is passionate about supporting people as they release what they've been carrying in their bodies, access deeper layers of who they are, and find freedom through reconnecting with themselves.
Ray feels honored to work with people from all backgrounds, and as a queer trans man, he holds a particular tenderness for queer, trans, and gender-expansive people. His hope is to offer a space where each person feels seen, supported, and free to be fully themselves.
Serving Atlanta, Georgia · Palm Beach, Florida · Miami, Florida
Rodiney SantiagoCertified
Rodiney Santiago is a certified ERT practitioner and Mind-Heart-Body-Spirit facilitator based in Palm Beach, Florida. Known to many as a model and TV personality, Rodiney has spent over a decade as a certified personal trainer. It was a three-month stay in Bali during the COVID pandemic that catalyzed his path as a healer. That time opened him to massage, meditation, and breathwork, and led him to Emotional Release Therapy first through Amanae in Brazil, then completed under Pat Jackman's teaching.
He sees modeling and healing as two expressions of the same purpose: the body as a powerful instrument of presence, communication, and transformation. Rodiney creates a safe, held space where you can process, breathe, and come home to yourself clearing emotional blocks, releasing stored trauma, and accessing deeper states of wholeness. He guides each person back to the peaceful, loving being they are meant to be. He speaks English, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Serving Portland · Toronto · Muskoka
Suzanne HallermanCertified
Suzanne Hallerman is a Canadian-born artist, facilitator, certified ERT practitioner, and lifelong explorer of healing and creativity.
Having lived in four different countries and traveled extensively over the last 5 decades, Suzanne knows without a doubt that humans are far more alike than they are different. As an introverted child carrying unnamed grief, however, those early years felt more disorienting than adventurous.
In 2016, after a devastating breakup, a close friend showed her a video of someone receiving an ERT session. Reservation put up a good fight, but desperation won, and within a month Suzanne found herself in Pat’s living room at a five-day workshop. The experience was life-changing. Originally, she joined the school as a means to continue receiving the work herself, but she quickly discovered how deeply satisfying it was to support others in coming back to themselves. After becoming certified, she assisted Pat Jackman in teaching the following cohort and co-facilitating numerous workshops. In 2024/5, she taught her own ERT cohort in Portland, Oregon.
Suzanne is also trained in ClayField Therapy and Guided Drawing, modalities that, like ERT, trust the body’s innate wisdom and capacity to heal. She believes deeply that your body already knows the way forward.
People often describe Suzanne as warm, grounded, and easy to be with. She has a gift for helping people feel genuinely seen and heard, while also bringing a refreshing dose of humor and lightness into the room.
Serving Folsom, California · Sacramento, California
Tracy PersonsCertified
Tracy was called to ERT at the height of what she refers to as her "midlife awakening." Perimenopause and the transformative power of middle age cracked her wide open. Trauma stemming from a childhood marked by domestic violence, parental alcoholism, and emotional and physical abuse demanded to be seen and felt. Desperate to find freedom from the inner suffering that had shaped much of her life, Tracy committed herself to the work of turning inward, and ERT became a powerful catalyst in that journey. What followed was a profound period of unraveling and healing.
Today, as a certified ERT practitioner, Tracy meets her clients from a place of deep humility and compassion, as a fellow traveler. She does not see herself as someone who has the answers, but as someone who has walked through her own personal darkness and is learning to trust the wisdom within. She understands what it feels like to be exhausted by old patterns, disconnected from oneself, and longing for something more authentic.
Tracy holds a Master's degree in Counseling, and while that foundation informs her work, it is her lived experience that most deeply shapes her practice. She is especially passionate about supporting women navigating major transitions, emotional overwhelm, grief, trauma, and periods of profound change. Her intention is to provide a safe, grounded space where clients can reconnect with themselves and discover the healing intelligence that already exists within them.
Serving San Francisco, Sacramento and San Joaquin Counties
Emily Kendall
Emily Kendall is an Emotional Release Practitioner in training based in San Francisco. For the past 26 years, she has worked as a personal chef, caring for people through food, nourishment, and practical service.
Emily was introduced to ERT in 2024 when she attended her first workshop with Pat Jackman. After years of seeking deeper emotional healing through traditional talk therapy, EMDR intensive work, and energy work, she experienced ERT as the modality that brought meaningful change to her own life. Through additional workshops and one-on-one work with Kamala Crompton, Emily became drawn to understanding how stored emotions can keep us stuck, overwhelmed, or disconnected from ourselves, which led her to enroll in Pat Jackman's ERT School.
Emily's approach is gentle, grounded, and supportive. Her Christian faith informs how she understands compassion, presence, and the dignity of each person's story, while creating a welcoming space for clients from all backgrounds. She offers clients a safe place to release what they are ready to let go of and reconnect with greater clarity, ease, and peace.
Emily is available to travel throughout California.
Serving Flagstaff, Arizona
Grace Bozorgmehr
Grace is passionate about bringing the aspects of ourselves that live in darkness to the light of our consciousness; diving deep into the feelings that live at the core of our wounds with courage, acceptance, and love. She is fascinated by the process of healing that takes place within the psyche and the transformation of inner and outer life that ensues. She is a lover of all humans and hopes to help bring out the beautiful, brilliant, authentic potential in each individual by letting go of all the “stuff” that has been blocking it from emanating into the world.
She's excited to work with you at any stage of your journey and feels it is a privilege and honor to witness your truth, vulnerability, and bravery in this work. She would also love to talk all things astrology, human design, gene keys, enneagram, and more with you.
Serving Maryland · Washington, DC · Northern Virginia
Jane Savina
Jane Savina is an Indonesian native and Maryland-based healing facilitator — a forever student, and what you would call an embodied inner child: someone who has stayed close to the parts of herself the world usually teaches us to outgrow.
Her path to this work is deeply personal — shaped by her own experience with trauma, addiction, and chronic illness and pain — and it is that lived understanding that she brings into the room with every client.
Jane holds certifications in Biofield Tuning, Emotion & Body Code, and Kambo, and is completing her ERT certification with Pat Jackman. She brings a multi-modality sensibility to her work, with a particular resonance for clients navigating chronic pain, illness, and the emotional roots beneath long-held patterns.
Her sessions are grounded in presence, warmth, and trust in the body's own intelligence to lead. She sees clients at her private studio in Glenarden, Maryland.
Serving Ojai, California
Laine Brown
Laine found ERT through the somatic therapist she was seeing. She felt the difference the work made in her life and wanted to offer that same difference to others; through it, she found her inner power once more. As an Endo Warrior, pain is familiar to her, and she knows physical pain on a very personal level. This work has helped her not only with the pain itself, but with the fear of the pain and the way her body now responds to it. She works with people who suffer and don't want to suffer anymore, holding space for your healing until you can stand on your own, just as her practitioner did for her.
Her goal is to work with people who have lost their power, people who are in physical pain, people of all genders and colors who simply want change. This work isn't easy, so if you're ready for change, she will be here.
Laine is a current student of the work, as well as a psychology student. She loves the mind-body connection and is fascinated by how the two are one.
Serving Sedona, Arizona
Login Violette
Regulation isn't about getting rid of our emotions—it's about expanding our capacity to be with them.
Having overcome her own experiences with anxiety, addiction, chronic stress, and a turbulent upbringing, Login understands what it feels like to live in survival mode—and what it takes to find your way back to safety and connection.
As a licensed massage therapist, she spent years helping people relieve physical pain. Along the way, she noticed that many of the areas holding the most tension were also holding unprocessed emotions and trauma.
She helps clients safely access, process, and release stored emotional experiences so they can feel more grounded, resilient, and at home in themselves. Her approach combines Emotional Release Therapy, somatic awareness, and nervous system support to create lasting change from the inside out.
Login is a Licensed Massage Therapist (Arizona State Board of Massage Therapy) and Trauma-Informed Therapist, and is currently completing her ERT practicums toward certification. She is also trained in Craniosacral Therapy, Passive Joint Manipulation & Shoulder Release Technique, Kinesiology & Palpation, and Somatic Parts Work for Clinicians.
Serving Bay Area, California
Ryan Calhoon
Ryan Calhoon, an ERT practitioner in training, is also a massage therapist of nearly 10 years. He works at a physical therapy office in Walnut Creek, CA and Senspa, the top holistic wellness spa in San Francisco.
For years, and through his own hardships with mental health and trauma, Ryan has devoted himself to understanding the inner workings of the mind, the nervous system, and the immobilizing disconnect that occurs somatically when emotions and/or the energy of trauma are not expressed.
Ryan reads every book he can get his hands on about mental health, trauma, and somatics, and has designed his own modality around bringing awareness to subconscious tension in the body.
He holds space like no other and is especially interested in helping people overcome trauma from men, deprogramming identification with unhealthy social structures, and facilitating reengagement with empathy, softness, and safe boundaries.
Ryan is also a musician, dancer, and filmmaker with a creative spark for helping others through artistic expression.
