Meet Colleen Cavanagh: Your Guide to Deep Healing and Empowerment

Hi there! I’m Colleen Cavanagh, a gifted somatic trauma specialist who is also a holistic psychotherapist and medical intuitive.

My unique expertise lies in guiding you through personal healing that resonates on all levels, equipping you with strategies and tools to help you on your life journey.

Imagine navigating life's complexities with a strong sense of capability, presence, and emotional awareness. 

Picture yourself confident, grounded, and prepared for the ebbs and flows of day-to-day life. 

This is the transformation I can help facilitate with you.

It is time to embrace emotional awareness and resilience to help you not just endure life's storms, but flourish through them. 

Through our work together, you can expect to gain a deeper self-awareness while establishing a comprehensive understanding of yourself and an internal sanctuary of safety.

Are you ready to embark on this empowering journey? 

Let's begin.

“We heal by accepting, allowing, and feeling our true selves. And to begin, we simply need a willingness to dive into the process... the healing then takes care of itself.”

— Colleen Cavanagh

What My Clients Are Saying

“In essence, Colleen is not just a practitioner; she is a guide, one that heals and offers her clients hope in the face of adversity. In the tapestry of healing, Colleen shines brightly, illuminating the path towards wholeness and restoration.” M.S.

The Evolution of My Healing Practice

 
 

I often say I sought to achieve therapy credentials in order to continue doing what I have always done, helping people. 

My years as a gymnastics coach taught me the power of mind over body and mind with body. I dove into the mechanics and capabilities of the physical body, a body capable of doing multiple flips and twists in the air. I learned that precision of thought and confidence is integral when we want to fly through the air and perform amazing feats.

My years as a psychotherapist taught me that safety is the most important ingredient to healing our minds and bodies. I now understand that when are in a safe and empowered state, we heal more rapidly.

As a somatic therapist, I learned that our mind and body are partners, and when united, together they have the power to influence all the cells and systems in our bodies. 

My independent healing practice began in 2012, and my private practice focused on couples and families healing together. I employed a non-diagnostic, non-pathologizing approach. This approach showed me conclusively that people respond best when they are given understanding, and straightforward options for recovery that give them back autonomy and freedom over their lives.

Five years ago, I moved fully into holistic and somatic therapies.

Why?

When it comes to healing your whole person, it’s not mind OR body — it’s mind listening to body. It's a synergistic dance between the two.

As a holistic psychotherapist, I have been privileged to support individuals through a variety of challenges, ranging from substance abuse, PTSD, depression, anxiety, marital and familial strife, to the trauma associated with battling cancer, and unresolved grief and loss.

Each journey has uniquely reinforced my belief in the interconnectedness of mind and body.

Not only that, I have personally recovered from cancer twice, and it is my understandings of the body’s healing potential and capacity that has guided me in all my own healing. 

Having now been in remission for ten years, I am even more confident that how we think of healing is just as important as the actual treatments we employ to heal.

My work is thus a testament to the extraordinary healing potential rooted within all of us. 

And I invite you to explore this pathway of profound healing and self-discovery with me.

“The work I am privileged to do is always an honor, and sometimes it is an overwhelming honor because humans are so intricate with their healing.”
— Colleen Cavanagh

What My Clients Are Saying

“Colleen is the best. She brought me back to life!

She helped me find my strength and self-love. She makes you feel understood and validates your feelings while working hard to make you see your true value, digging deep inside, taking me back into my childhood, making me understand why I am who I am. I've never felt judged, even when I don't follow her advice. I look forward each week to our appointment; sitting with her is like sitting with a best friend; she remembers everything and makes you feel comfortable. I'm so happy I found her!” — B.B.

Certifications & Credentials

In addition to my experience with holistic psychotherapy, I have been trained in various mental and holistic health programs and techniques, including:

For a full listing of all the positions I have held over the years, visit my LinkedIn page. 

For the past two and a half years, I have also worked on the care team at the Making Headways Foundation, a NY non-profit that works with pediatric brain cancer patients and their families.

Working with families navigating the challenge of a cancer diagnosis is a privilege I do not take for granted.

Cancer awakens vulnerabilities in a family, and the conversations are delicate. As I tell my families, cancer is a “family journey”. The family becomes the life force for the family member undergoing cancer treatment. The family walks together and heals together.

For this reason, family therapy is my preferred modality working with all stages of cancer.

What My Clients Are Saying

“After our son was diagnosed with brain cancer, we were seeking a therapist, one who understands the needs of a cancer family. Meeting Colleen was an answered prayer!

Instantly, we connected with Colleen. Her passion, dedication, creativity, and authenticity shone throughout all sessions. Through couples and family therapy, Colleen has been instrumental in helping our family heal. She taught us how to breathe, how to be present, and how to have hope. We will forever be grateful to Colleen!” — L.C.

Embrace Your 'Aha' Moments: Unearth Your Healing Potential

I am passionate and excited for you to experience those 'Aha' moments — when clouds of confusion and pain dissipate to reveal insights about your potential for healing.

My mission and goal for each service I offer is that you feel truly seen, heard, and understood. 

I’m excited for you and your family to come together and experience all the love that is underneath the pain, fear, and dysfunction brought on by life, generational trauma, and entrenched patterns.

Our journey together unfolds through a guided intertwining of body, mind, and soul. 

My experience as a medical intuitive and somatics expert allows us to work together to activate deep healing processes and understanding so that you learn how to live an empowered life, complete with self-acceptance, coping tools, and eye-opening revelations about how amazing and capable your body is at the art of healing itself. 

Are you set to uncover the full spectrum of your power — spanning mind, body, and soul? 

If the answer is YES, there is an exhilarating journey ahead of us.

Praying with Machapo, sacred tobacco from Peru.

A Tapestry of Experiences: How My Life Journey Influences My Practice

Beyond my role as a holistic psychotherapist, my practice is influenced significantly by a tapestry of diverse life experiences.

One such profound influence is the philosophy of Taoism, which pulsates at the heart of my therapeutic work and lifestyle. 

Taoism embodies the idea of not pushing — if you push against something, it pushes back. If you hold something too tightly, you lose it. When we are in rejection of the self, or aspects of the self, we are strengthening the very parts of our selves we long to heal. 

Therefore, in answer to that, the practice of presence, acceptance, and surrender becomes the medicine. I take this principle with me when I work with my clients, and it impacts how I interact with all aspects of the therapeutic journey. 

I hold the belief that humans are universally similar in their hearts and bodies — and that the heart is the true entry point for healing. I celebrate all of our differences as integral and important details of each person’s story and invite ancestors, culture, and history into the therapeutic space.

In addition to traditional clinical training and licensing, my life and work have been enriched by exposure to alternative healing traditions. 

I have had the extraordinary privilege of practicing healing rituals in Peru under the guidance of master teachers, shamans, medicine women, and healers. 

This cross-cultural exposure has bestowed me with a broad wellspring of insights and strategies that breathe depth and nuance into my therapeutic toolkit, weaving a rich tapestry that forms the backdrop of my holistic psychotherapy practice.

Embrace Your Inner Healer

There is a wonderfully intuitive, built-in healing system within you, located in every cell of your being.

When you seek my support, I guide you with an “inside-out” approach. By connecting mind and body, using somatic resonance and channeling, together we will unveil real-time feedback about your body and emotional wellbeing.

With your mind as both observer and listener, we will learn the body’s story: what has your body been through? How has it survived? What has it endured and overcome, to get you here today?

And now that you have arrived here, self aware and strong, I am excited to help you become the builder of your success story — a story of creativity, empowerment, joy, and fulfillment. 

This journey towards embodied and authentic living is within your reach. Let's embark on the path together.

What My Clients Are Saying

“Although the most intensive time of my therapy seems to have passed, Colleen continues, as she says, to "walk with me." She signs her emails "warmly and always," offering her most precious, selfless, and enduring gift — the assurance that she is and will be there whenever I need to circle back to her.” — N.B.