Team | Mentors

Funda Battle is the Coordinator for HEARTraining^® Turkey and a HEARTraining Mentor. She believes that OI is one of the most accessible and effective approaches for bringing people to true healing and is passionately working to bring Organic Intelligence^® to Istanbul. She offers workshops throughout Turkey with the aim of helping others cultivate self-compassion and a deeper understanding of human physiological and psychological interconnectedness.

Karen spent 10 years teaching academic reading, writing, and critical thinking for international students in American universities. But her true love was to find integrative approaches to facilitate the experience of feeling more fully alive. Since 2004, her training included various therapeutic bodywork modalities and mindfulness practices, and then expanded to include Somatic Experiencing^®, Touch Skills for Trauma Therapists, NeuroAffective Touch™, and now Organic Intelligence^®. She has also trained in expanding erotic intelligence and facilitating sexual wholeness.

Karen maintains a private practice in Orange County, California, working primarily with adults. She specializes in working with the dysregulated nervous system patterns underlying chronic pain and other syndromes. She collaborates extensively with mental health professionals, providing touch therapy for their clients with a history of early dysregulation. She also has a passion for supporting people who want to develop their capacity for healthy love and sexuality.

Dr. Heather Berberet is a San Diego Psychologist specializing in couples therapy and a Mentor in the OI HEARTraining^®. When not working with adults, couples and adolescents in her private practice, she is mothering her daughter, loving her wife, and watching Doctor Who (and Star Trek, and Star Wars, and anything sci-if/geeky, really). In addition, she can found in the morning and evening walking her three dogs, trying to see the world for what it really is and enjoying the view.

Heike Bill is a Gestalt Therapist and a Mentor in the OI HEARTraining^®.

Rob Blinn, PhD is Associate Faculty and will co-teach the Hawai'i 2 HEARTraining with Steve Hoskinson. He holds a PhD and MS in Clinical Psychology from Palo Alto University and a MA in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA. Rob practices yoga and sitting and walking meditation on a regular basis. He also enjoys walking his two dogs and hanging out with all of his pets. Rob lived in Beijing, China from 2003-2014 and now makes his home on the Big Island of Hawai'i.

While in China, Rob commuted to the San Francisco Bay Area to train with Steve Hoskinson and was project director of the 18-month China Earthquake Relief Project (CHERP) focused on healing survivors from the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, utilizing practitioners who were trained by Steve Hoskinson and Peter Levine. Rob specializes in Disaster Mental Health, Trauma Healing, auto accident trauma, and men’s issues.

Rob is an Organic Intelligence^® (OI) Practitioner, a Somatic Experiencing^® (SE™) Practitioner, A Neuro-Affective Relational Model (NARM) Practitioner, and has completed Kathy Kain’s Touch Skills for Trauma Therapists (TST). Rob is in private practice with East Hawai'i Somatic Healing, Inc.

Baylee Bolton is a Mentor at the OI HEARTraining^® and has been been in the health and wellness field for over 10 years. She is a Holist Health Practitioner, Certified Massage Therapist, and Yoga Instructor. Baylee has spent the last 3 years working in the somatic fields as an Organic Intelligence^® Practitioner and Somatic Experiencing^® Practitioner.

Baylee's primary form of work is Somatic Touch, combining OI and touch/massage work. She has a private practice and works part time along with a Naturopathic Doctor doing medical massage and OI Touch therapy. Baylee also volunteers with a San Diego based nonprofit group called Warriors Live On, where she works with veterans. She loves working with all age groups with a focus on working with children, stress and anxiety, and PTSD. Baylee has even been known to work on some of our four legged friends as well.

Marisol Colette, MSW, LCSW, SEP, OIX is a Mentor at Organic Intelligence^®. She holds a Bachelor’s of Social Work from Warren Wilson College and a Master’s of Social Work from Columbia University in the city of New York. Marisol meditates daily and has a regular yoga practice.

From 2007-2015, she worked at the VA Medical Center providing support to Veterans experiencing homelessness, PTSD, mental health and substance abuse issues, chronic pain, adjustments to medical diagnosis and more. In 2010 she began studying somatic therapy, including Organic Intelligence.

Marisol Colette is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), and an Organic Intelligence (OI) and Somatic Experiencing^® (SE™) Practitioner with a private practice Sol Reflection. She offers professional and organizational trainings in the Asheville, North Carolina area.  Additionally, she teaches in the Social Work Department at Warren Wilson College.

David Cornwell was born and raised in Ireland. He completed an undergraduate degree in Geography at Northumbriua University Newcastle upon Tyne. He started practicing meditation during university when he was 19 years old. Upon leaving university David worked as a meditation and yoga teacher, settling in Istanbul Turkey, where he founded Cihangir Yoga, a studio that today employs 100 people, teaching 600 students per day.

David began training with Steve Hoskinson in 2013. The models of Organic Intelligence^® underpin much of David’s work.  David is currently completing a Masters program at the Karuna University in the UK in Mindfulness Based Psychotherapeutic practice. David is also enrolled to study a masters in Mindfulness Based Psychotherapeutic Practice at the department of psychiatry at Oxford University, beginning October 2018.

David currently lives in Mallorca with his wife and two children, where he maintains a private practice. He continues to travel to Turkey where he co-directs a pioneering mindfulness clinic located within Turkey's American Hospital, which provides inpatient care, as well as an educational outreach program. David offers trainings in mindfulness skills for health care professionals in Turkey.

Robin Craig is OI Associate Faculty and has studied with OI Founder Steve Hoskinson since 2006. She studied Neuroscience at the Vollum Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research in Portland, OR before moving to Arizona in 1996 where she became a Licensed Professional Counselor and reconnected with land and heart. Initially, this reconnection came during the time she spent on the Navajo reservation, for the first time experiencing how connection to place and community truly creates a foundation for the exploration of being a human on this planet.

The exploration of community and connection continued through her work at The Southwest Forest Alliance and then at Northland Family Help Center, a place that offers services to victims of crime and also houses a domestic violence shelter. At Northland, she was part of the group that brought a deepened understanding of Trauma Informed Care to the organization, which meant creating an environment to support the staff in what was needed for their own expanded resiliency, which then created a safe and healthier container for the clients and residents.

Today, Robin is a student in John Yates’ (Upasaka Culadasa’s) meditation teacher training program and has been exploring how to restore physiological, spiritual, and psychological resiliency through the natural interweaving of Organic Intelligence® and meditation. Through this training and her time studying OI with Steve, Robin has been discovering the natural ways that OI’s understanding of going “beyond trauma” goes hand in hand with deep spiritual teachings and practice. Both teachings bring the understanding that joy is a part of the path to the deep spirituality and interconnection that is ours by nature.

Robin is also in a singing trio, where the expression of music and harmony reflects her curiosity of how different voices come together to form community and collective understandings.

Link to Robin's OI Blog Post

Sean Feit Oakes, PhD, is Associate Faculty at Organic Intelligence^® and co-teaches the San Francisco HEARTraining^® with Steve Hoskinson. Sean received his PhD in Performance Studies from UC Davis, researching states of consciousness in Buddhist meditation and postmodern dance practices.

Sean teaches OI, Buddhism, and Haṭha Yoga with a focus on the integration of meditation, philosophy, and self-inquiry with trauma resolution and social justice. He has studied in Zen, Tibetan, and Theravāda Buddhist lineages, trained as a monk in Burma, and was authorized to teach Insight Meditation by Jack Kornfield in 2010.

Sean Feit Oakes teaches at East Bay Meditation Center, Yoga Garden SF, Piedmont Yoga, Yoga Tree, and Spirit Rock Meditation Center, where he completed the Dedicated Practitioner, Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation, and Community Dharma Leader trainings.

Boaz Feldman is an eco-socially engaged contemplative acting for worldwide positive change, and Associate Faculty at Organic Intelligence^®. He started practicing Vipassana (Mindfulness) meditation as a monk in the Thai forest tradition close to 15 years ago. Every year since then, he has spent at least 3 months in intensive retreats of silent practice.

Boaz has studied business, economics, buddhism and psychology and trained as a therapist in various traditions including systemics, psychosomatics, psychoanalytics and the contemplative sciences. He has been involved in various humanitarian and development projects in conflict-affected regions (Afghanistan, Myanmar) as a bio-psychosocial trainer.

Boaz currently works at a private practice in Geneva, trains groups at NGOs (activists, community leaders) and organizations (executives, lawyers) in empowerment and resiliency, and teaches the Organic Intelligence HEARTraining^® in Turkey and co-teaches the HEARTraining in Switzerland with OI Founder Steve Hoskinson.

Boaz is a visiting professor for the University of Trinity College Dublin MBA programs, and conducts mindfulness and compassion research at the National Research Center for Affective Sciences at the University of Geneva.

Andrea is a Mentor in the OI HEARTraining^®. She came from a diverse background, having worked in the film industry as a commercial production manager, a stint working as a 911 police dispatcher and 10 years as a self defense instructor when she found the work of trauma resolution in 2000. While studying Somatic Experiencing^® (SE™) she got her certification as a massage therapist and opened her private practice.

After many years of coordinating and assisting SE and OI trainings Andrea continues to coordinate Somatic Practice bodywork classes for Kathy Kain and assist at the HEARTrainings to deepen her work. She is a beginning instructor for Organic Intelligence and has also developed an online Boundary course, Boundaries and the Body. This year she will launch her podcast, The Boundary Spectrum.

In 2004, Andrea found and married Kevin, whom she followed to the Central Valley of California so he could return to his love of farming on the family pistachio ranch. They have 2 cats, Sadie and Mulan.

Veronika Gold is passionate about personal growth, exploration of consciousness, finding the best ways of serving the planet, and helping others find their place and passion in life. She specializes in the treatment of stress disorders and has a private practice in San Francisco and San Mateo, California.

Veronika works in the research of PTSD treatment and using psychedelics in mental health treatments. She has studied different types of meditation and regularly practices Embodiment Meditation of The Realization Process.  She enjoys being in the nature, hiking, traveling, and spending quality time with her family and friends.

Veronika is a citizen of the world. Born in the Czech Republic she traveled in South East Asia, lived in Australia, Japan, and Indonesia, and in 2003 moved to the Bay Area. Veronika has dedicated her life to ease suffering on the planet. She is involved in projects protecting the nature and committed to personal healing and helping others heal. In 2017 she became vegan.

Gloria Gonzales is a Mentor at the OI HEARTraining^®. The process of unfolding is like watching a horizon. Imagine driving in a car on a long stretch of desert highway — open and expansive. The mountains and sun rise before you, your view is broad, and the sense of receiving and observing nature is pleasant, perhaps even grand.

This is how an Organic Intelligence session feels. Is it time to move beyond trauma, and let something greater unfold from within you?

Gloria is founder of Eight Elements West, an Institute for Somatic Education and Integrative Wellness. Sessions incorporate integrative body-based modalities like visceral manipulation to integrate emotion, voice and touch.  Cransiosacral therapy addresses restrictions in cranial nerves, brain, and spine. Gloria’s 35-year background also includes a degree in Kinesiology/Nutrition, hypnotherapy, reiki, and mindfulness-based somatic practices of Iyengar yoga/pranayama, and Nia (blends tai chi, tae kwon do, aikido, modern dance, Duncan, jazz, Alexander, Feldenkrais, yoga). Sensation, emotion, and cognition woven together in OI support biological coherence, relieving physical and emotional symptoms.

Bram is an Organic Intelligence^® (OI Expert level), Somatic Experiencing^® (SEP), and Sat Nam Rasayan Practitioner. He has studied with Steve Hoskinson for over 6 years, as well as Kathy Kain, and is certified in her Touch Skills program. He grew up with an Aikido sensei as a mother and a traveling artist as a father, and was steeped in both mindfulness and creative practices from a young age.

Bram has completed yoga teacher trainings in multiple traditions, tantra and conscious relationship coaching with David Deida, studied and practiced Shipibo Shamanism in Peru, and was a singer and fire-tender in the Native American Church for 4 years. He is also a music and technology nerd and runs a small recording studio in Encinitas, CA.

Bram brings his diverse background to offer compassionate support to people from many walks of life. He loves working with creative individuals, young adults, and those who are working towards achieving their goals and realizing their dreams.

Maggie Locke is a Mentor at the OI HEARTraining^®. She discovered somatic therapies in the mid-1990s during a course of personal treatment in Bioenergetic Analysis. The work affected her so profoundly that she transitioned from a successful 20-year career in journalism to study and practicing this approach.

After 10 years of working as a Psychotherapist with the severely mentally ill in a variety of settings she was introduced to Somatic Experiencing^® during a workshop. Almost immediately she sensed significant change in her system and entered the SE™ training.

Another 10 years later, having established a private practice based on somatic approaches, Organic Intelligence invites further expansion into her relationship with herself, her work and the world.

Maggie is a mother, a grandmother and a dual citizen of the United States and Ireland. Her life — much of it lived abroad — has been an effort to bridge different cultures and eras to find her ground amidst breathtaking change. While the kind of community and connection she knew as a child in a rural Irish hinterland no longer exists, she has found a sense of connection and grounding within herself, through the deep experience of her own body.

Her work aims to open this capacity for others who navigate their own losses and longings, to help bring them home to themselves in the natural world of their own physiology.

Helma Mair holds a Master’s degree in Somatic Psychology from Santa Barbara Graduate Institute and a PhD in Somatic Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She is a Mentor in the OI HEARTraining^®. In addition, Helma is a fully qualified Somatic Experiencing^® practitioner, NARM practitioner, and Hakomi therapist and has served as an assistant at Somatic Experiencing and Organic Intelligence^® trainings.

Helma has completed a program in Relational Somatic Psychotherapy, combining knowledge of the body and relational processes as valuable supports in the therapeutic process. Helma has also trained in Integrative Energy Therapy, a gentle and non-invasive form of connecting with one’s internal experience at an energetic level. To complement her therapeutic work, Helma practices Aikido, a Japanese self-defence system, in which she holds a fourth-degree black belt.

Brent Morton is a Mentor at the HEARTraining^®, a Buddhist meditation teacher, bodyworker, and a somatic provider using the Organic Intelligence^® approach. Brent lives in Seattle where he teaches group meditation classes and provides one on one Organic Intelligence sessions.

His practice and training includes completion of a 4-year Buddhist meditation teacher training through Jack Kornfield and Spirit Rock Meditation Center; completion of the 3-year advanced training in Somatic Experiencing; continued mentorship with Steve Hoskinson and the Organic Intelligence approach to trauma healing; completion of a 750-hour massage training and licensure as a massage practitioner; completion of 3 yoga teacher trainings and 8 years of teaching yoga asan in a studio environment; 2 years of study of Craniosacral therapy through the Milne Institute; over 10 years of practice and study of Buddhist meditation, including over 50 silent meditation retreats and practice in Thailand, Burma, and India.

People typically come to see Brent for a somatic approach when they are feeling sad, anxious, overwhelmed, angry, confused; when they have recurring symptoms that confuse other providers (easily "triggered", digestive issues, panic attacks, auto-immune issues); because they are having problems with their close relationships or have issues with boundaries; because there is a specific issue they are coping with; because their identity is somehow in flux; because they are seeking growth and increased wellness; or simply because they feel something is "missing" and desire deeper meaning in their lives.

On a more personal note, Brent enjoys saunas and cold plunges, long philosophical conversations, beaches, nature, coffee, chocolate, music, sailing, good books, and unplanned international adventures.

Sara Oakes is Lead Mentor and co-teaches the Berkeley HEARTraining^® with Sean Feit Oakes. She began professional healing practice as a bodyworker, training in massage, Polarity Therapy, Deep Tissue and structural work. Turning toward subtle modalities, she completed the Milne Institute’s Visionary Craniosacral training followed by Somatic Experiencing^® training with Steve Hoskinson, Peter Levine, and Kathy Kain, and the Organic Intelligence^® OI Expert Master Class Program. She offers craniosacral bodywork for adults and children, weaving somatic bodywork with OI and trauma resolution. In recent years, her focus on pediatric care has expanded through work with the Craniosacral Children’s Collective and as a Tummy Time Tutor.

Dance, yoga, singing, Buddhism, and Authentic Movement are all integral aspects of her practice, along with meditation and other formal contemplative modalities. She has practiced meditation in the US and in Southeast Asia with many wonderful teachers, and completed the Dedicated Practitioner and Community Dharma Leader Programs at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She teaches mindfulness and Buddhism to teens at Spirit Rock, and East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland.

Mark Read-Smith is an OI Mentor. He lives in Asheville with his wife and three boys and feels fortunate to call the mountains of Western North Carolina home.

Mark works out of a private practice in downtown Asheville and via Skype with clients who live out of the area. Mark’s work draws upon experiences in social work, Rolf Movement Integration, Rolfing^® Structural Integration, yoga, pilates, continuum movement, Somatic Experiencing^®, and Organic Intelligence^®. Mark is currently pursuing a graduate degree from Appalachian State University in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.

Mark feels his gifts as a bodyworker are better understood and greatly enhanced by the Organic Intelligence protocol.  Personally, Mark feels like Organic Intelligence provides an avenue for meaning-making and enjoys creating art through the OI lens.

Rebecca Renfrow, Mentor and Coordinator of the Tucson HEARTraining^®, is a resilience counselor and group facilitator using Organic Intelligence^®, Somatic Experiencing^® and the Creative Community model.

A long time social justice activist, Rebecca came to healing arts as a way to support individuals and communities to build resilience and resolve trauma to shape and sustain movements toward equity, dignity, and vitality for all peoples. With a professional background in theater, circus arts, and arts education, Rebecca especially delights in using play and creativity as tools for transformation.

Newly relocated to the Seattle area from the Sonoran desert, Rebecca cultivates embodied mindfulness while orienting to the movement of water, the shape of trees, and other elements in nature. Lately, she particularly enjoys catching glimpses of wild rabbits and sea mammals.

Charlie Ruce, LMFT is a licensed marriage and family therapist, practicing at The Soul Care House, a thriving group practice in San Diego, CA. Charlie also serves as the Clinical Director of The Soul Care House, managing and training the staff team of therapists to most effectively create transformation and wholeness in the lives and relationships of their clients.

Charlie has recently begun using the OI principles to coach executives on how to create "flow" within their personal lives, leadership style, and organization or business.

Charlie is also a student of the Wisdom and Perennial teachings within the Christian tradition. He has seen a Spiritual Director for the last 7 years and he and his wife Heather attend an annual week long retreat focusing on centering prayer and other wisdom practices.

Martin Schlozer is a Mentor and Coordinator of the Basel HEARTraining^®. Martin is a Physical Therapist and a Feldenkrais Teacher (IFF). He has a long experience with and broad theoretical background in many areas related to movement, pain management, learning, mindfulness, neurophysiology, and personal growth and manages a private practice in Arlesheim, Basel, Switzerland.

Martin has worked with the Feldenkrais Method^® in personal sessions through touch (Functional Integration^®) and with groups (Awareness through Movement^®), while deepening his understanding through NLP, Ericksonian hypnosis, focusing, Somatic Experiencing^®, and Organic Intelligence.

Through the 3-year Embodied Life Mentorship Program with Russell Delman, a combination of Feldenkrais, Focusing, Meditation and Nonviolent Communication, he deepened his experience in  Mindfulness and Compassion.

Through Aikido he found SEITAI Noguchi, a Japanese Method to support the body’s inherent energies and impulses for self-healing. He teaches SEITAI Groups in his DOJO and supports his teacher Unsho Sensei to bring more awareness to this work in Europe.

Martin’s hobbies are aquarelle painting and hiking.

Committed to the OI work, Martin mentors students in the Istanbul HEARTraining in Turkey and promotes and coordinates the first HEARTraining in Switzerland, which will take place in his new SHINGENKI DOJO in Arlesheim, close to Basel.

Amie Summers is Associate Faculty at Organic Intelligence^®. Among her firmly held beliefs is that we all possess an innate impulse for healing — within each of us we have exactly what we need to get there. The intention of the work she engages in with children and adolescents is to help them reconnect with this inner strength and knowing.

This belief, coupled with the teachings of Organic Intelligence^®, has meant bearing witness to awe-inspiring transformations in children and their families. Helpful tools along the way include lots of play, sensory awareness, dialogue and narrative-creation, and mindfulness.

Her two greatest teachers are her children, two boys under the age of five. They’ve taught her more about herself than she could ever hope to teach them — not to mention they’re experts in living playfully, with ease, and in the moment!  Growing a personal practice of mindfulness meditation, one of Organic Intelligence’s guiding principles, has meant engaging with herself, other humans, and the world-at-large in a deeper and more meaningful way.

Heath Wilson is an OI mentor at the HEARTraining^® in Istanbul, Turkey. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in psychology and is a long-time Rolf Practitioner, Craniosacral Therapist, Enneagram-Coach and meditation teacher. He is founder of Good Guy With Edge™, a men’s integral growth process, and is proud to have recently trained as a self-defence instructor for women, based on the holistic Model Mugging^® system. 

He believes the most enduring transformations in a human life come from the conscious exploration through one's body, sexuality, emotions, mind and spirit, especially in relationship with others. To this end, Heath welcomes all themes when working with people. He integrates Somatic Experiencing^® and Organic Intelligence^® in a variety of ways in the personal development work with clients. He has over 20 year’s experience supporting positive changes in his clients’ lives.

Book a session or group work with Heath in Cologne, Germany or an individual Skype session. Visit the mentor list in your OI Virtual Classroom for contact info.

English, Spanish and German spoken.

Diana Wood is a Mentor at the OI HEARTraining^® and a Somatic Psychotherapist with 35 years in the healing arts field.  She began with structural bodywork, progressed to clinical social work and after retiring from a county agency, returned to her roots in somatics (SE™ & OI) and Jungian theory and practice through Kalffian SandPlay.

Diana's focus is on creating a safe and supportive therapeutic container for clients to explore, encounter and learn to have compassion for the wounded parts/states residing within their soma and psyche so that they may fully engage their lives with wholehearted embodied joy and commitment to self compassion. On this journey, wherever we are, we will be contributing to the transformation of our world that we so earnestly seek. We are embodied beings of Light within an alive manifested world, we only need to dare to embrace it.