Writing is one of the ways I pass on what this work has taught me. A few of these pieces went to print in journals and newsletters. Others were written for colleagues and for the practitioners I train, and have lived until now in a folder on my desk. Some have never been published anywhere, and I share them here because the ideas deserve a wider circle.
This writing leans more professional than my blog, and much of it was written for people in the healing professions, though anyone curious is welcome. For shorter, more personal pieces, visit Reflections. At the bottom of the page you will find a few things to take home.
Articles and Papers
Clinical Validation and Application of Touch as a Psychotherapeutic Intervention in Public Mental Health Settings
Paper written for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, 7/2011. Updated 9/2012; edited 2026.
Abstract: Written in 2011 for the clinical managers of a public mental health agency, this paper reviews the research on touch in psychotherapy and coins the term psychotherapeutic touch, setting it apart from touch that harms. It argues that withholding touch can do as much harm as touching badly, and that no-touch policies do not protect an agency from litigation. It closes with four recommendations: allow touch for clinicians trained in it, give every clinician basic touch training, provide somatic supervision, and set standards for documenting touch. A full reference list is included.
What’s Wrong With No-Touch Policies?
Colorado Counseling Association Newsletter, 2/2012. Updated 2026.
Takes apart the two beliefs behind no-touch policies in mental health settings: that they prevent litigation, and that touch in therapy is inherently unethical.
Alchemical Injury: Self-Transformation Through Dance/Movement Therapy and Internal Family Systems in Highly Embodied Adults with Chronic Injuries
Master’s thesis, Naropa University, 5/2009.
Proposes joining Internal Family Systems with dance/movement therapy for highly embodied people living with lasting injuries, so that an identity built on what the body can do may open toward Self, the is-ness of being.
Disordered Eating and the Athlete
San Diego Sports Massage Team Newsletter, 1992. Written during my years in massage therapy and structural integration.
Presentations
When Legal Isn’t Ethical: Psychedelics, Touch, and the Cost of Regulation
Talk, presented live at the Touch with Substance Conference, 10/16/2026.
Traces how the touch rules in psychedelic therapy were written without the people who practice touch, and what those rules cost practitioners and the clients in their care. The full text of the talk, to keep.
Listen to the recording on Talks & Podcasts.
To Take Home
A few offerings you can bring into your own practice and life.
The Isness of Being
A journal. Paperback, $9.75.
what if you are not a problem to solve?
For years I slipped, unbidden, into states of effortless presence: in movement, in meditation, among trees, in deep conversation with another person. I had no word for them, so I called them isness. I meant to write a book about it, and every page of philosophy I drafted pulled further from the thing itself. So I made a book of open pages instead.
The Isness of Being is a journal for anyone who longs to rest in what is already here. Along the bottom of its pages run soft lines of inquiry, like “only this breath breathing you” and “what if you released your grasp?” The rest of the page is yours: for poems, for sketches, for the revelations of your own awakening, or for nothing at all.
A beautiful gift for a friend on a spiritual path, or for yourself.
Write or Speak for You
If you would like me to write for your publication or speak to your organization, I would love to hear from you. Get in touch.