Hello, I'm Heidi (she/her).
I'm a psychosomatic therapist, herbalist, and flower essence practitioner in the New York City area.
In 2007, I began to question the beliefs I held around myself, healing, and reality. Seeking answers beyond the mainstream I found my spiritual teacher and mentor, Jane Bell. Through our work studying Focusing and Egyptian Mysticism, my commitment to healing and transformation bloomed, leading me to leave my previous career and New York City, retreating into three years of academic and personal study. After completing my master's in mental health counseling I returned to the city, began an apprenticeship with Claudia Keel, an herbalist, nutritionist, and flower essence practitioner, and enrolled in the three-year clinical herbal medicine program at Arbor Vitae. With the aid of my teachers, guides, community, and the plant kingdom, Moon & Bloom Integrative and Flower Essence Therapy was born on the New Moon in July 2014.
We all have wounds and challenges. Through my own struggles in my twenties, I felt conflicted about the limited access available to deeper, soul-level healing. For me, traditional psychotherapy and medication were not the answer. While I am grateful for my training within the western medical model, I feel deeply aligned with ancient and indigenous wisdom. I have found that developing the spiritual dimension of the self, utilizing plant medicine, and understanding the imperative of collective healing can facilitate powerful transformation. I have spent over a decade cultivating a unique healing practice in order to offer the highest degree of service to my clients and community.
Training and Credentials
My training includes:
✷ Post-Master’s Certificate in Trauma-Informed Clinical Practice, New York University School of Social Work
✷ Accreditation as a Registered Herbalist, the American Herbalist Guild
✷ Three-Year Advanced Certificate, Clinical Herbal Program, Arbor Vitae School of Traditional Herbalism
✷ Flower essence practitioner training from Delta Gardens and the Flower Essence Society
✷ Focusing Training, Levels 1-4
✷ Two years of practicing an eclectic approach to counseling at Walden Behavioral Care and Smith College
✷ Seven years of studying Focusing and energy work with Jane Bell
✷ Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, Antioch University New England
Additionally, I receive regular, peer and individualized supervision with several practitioners
On My Decision to Remain Unlicensed
After finishing my graduate training, I felt conflicted about working within the medical industrial complex and adhering to a code of ethics that didn’t encompass my values and beliefs about health and disease. I feel that we need to create and amplify alternative and complementary models of healing that are accessible, accountable, and reflective of a holistic worldview, beyond the Eurocentric paradigm. For me, this meant foregoing licensure, and instead creating my own integrative practice that honors ancient healing and wisdom traditions.
A Word on Privilege
I am a white, cis-gendered, upper middle-class woman of European descent, and I live and work on unceded Lenape/Canarsie land. While I believe that personal identifiers are important, as multidimensional beings, we are also all interconnected within the collective rainbow by our humanness.
The models for both western medicine and herbal medicine have proliferated within a context of white supremacy, sexism, gender essentialism, classism, and ableism, and I continue to explore this terrain with curiosity and compassion. We can only facilitate so much healing and recovery within a sick society, and so my practice must also extend to collective and planetary change. I am in a position to get to do the work I love, and as such, I donate 10% of my yearly profits to organizations which are also committed to change in this way.