She received her Masters in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley and was a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Lauren has professional training in somatically oriented therapies that address the integration of mind, body, and emotions. She works with people experiencing grief and loss, chronic pain, trauma, depression, and anxiety. She has taught six-week journal writing series for cancer survivors at Palo Alto Medical Foundation and she teaches expressive arts courses (SoulCollage® and Memoir) at Cabrillo College Extension in Santa Cruz, California. Teaching transformative Focusing skills that empower both her clients and colleagues is one of her main joys and passions in life.