Current Board Members

Maureen Harrington

SEP, NARM, CMT

President
 

Maureen Harrington, SEP, NARM, CMT has held a private practice for over 20 years addressing shock and developmental trauma. In addition to her SE™ Certificate, she holds a California Massage Therapist license and has extensively trained in Kathy Kain’s somatic work. Additionally, she holds certificates in NeuroAffective Touch and as a NARM Practitioner to inform her work with developmental trauma. She lives in San Francisco’s East Bay on the unceded territory of the Ohlone people and she practices in Oakland, CA and Sebastopol, CA.

Maureen has deep roots in the SE™ Community beginning her SE™ training in 2001 and having served as a Teaching Assistant for SEI’s professional trainings from 2005-12. During that time she also served as Coordinator and Lead Assistant to Dr. Peter Levine for his annual Esalen Institute workshops. It’s from these experiences that she was drawn, with a group of her fellow SE Assistants, to develop an SE™ Professional Association in order to offer mutual support, professional growth and social engagement with her SE™ community outside of assisting trainings. Maureen is looking forward to the continuation of collaboration and connection in our diverse Northern California region.

Andrea Gage

SEP, CMT, OIX

Treasurer
 

Andrea Gage, SEP comes to the work through past professions as a Self defense instructor and Bodyworker. She has been a student of SE™ since 2000 having studied with many of the SE™ teachers and continues her studies, assisting and coordinating with Kathy Kain and other developmental classes. Her passion on the board is to create a safe space where community can come together for both connection, learning and the deepening of SE™ principles. Andrea continues to understand her own unseen biases and old conditioning to broaden her holding of community.

Gwynne Gilson

LMFT, SEP, OI

Board Member

Gwynne is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner living on unceded Ohlone territory in the San Francisco East Bay region. After 17 years of various roles in county and community mental health organizations, she now has a full-time psychotherapy practice while also training as an Organic Intelligence coach. As well, she is an adjunct faculty member in the MFT program at the University of San Francisco. Becoming a Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner transformed both her personal and professional life, most importantly by bringing her into community with the amazing people this work attracts.

As a white cis-gender therapist, she is committed to the study of how white supremacy invisibly and not-so-invisibly creates trauma and stress for people in varying degrees, considering the intersectionality of the identities we all hold. Gwynne strives to recognize her privilege, be an ally to folx who experience the marginalization imposed by oppression, and practice awareness of how her implicit bias can affect her perceptions, behavior and relationships.

Michael Changaris

PsyD, Past SEI Chairman of the Board

Secretary

Michael Changaris, PsyD. is the Chief Clinical Training Officer, health psychology groups program lead & psychopharmacology rotation lead for the Wright Institute, Integrated Health Psychology Training Program (IHPTP) an APA accredited internship in health psychology. He is an adjunct professor with John F. Kennedy University and The Wright Institute. Dr. Changaris is a clinical health psychologist with a specialty in multicultural psychology, stress physiology, and the neuroanatomy of PTSD. Michael Changaris is a 2018 UCSF, California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) Leadership Fellow. He served on the health disparities committee at Contra Costa County Health and along with the team, was recognized with the 2018 'Health Partnership' award for work addressing implicit bias in health care.