Suzie Wolfer LCSW, SEP

Founder of Oregon Somatic Therapy
Author of The Owner’s Manual for Befriending Your Body: The Nervous System Skills You Were Never Taught

I’m no longer taking new therapy clients—but the work continues in new ways.

For over three decades, I’ve helped people find their way back home to themselves. Somatic Experiencing® became the heart of that work when I began studying with Steve Hoskinson in 2010 and completed the three-year training in 2012. Since then, I’ve assisted in Somatic Experiencing® trainings throughout the West Coast and supported hundreds of students in developing the art of nervous system awareness.

Though I am no longer taking new clients, my focus now is on sharing what I’ve learned through teaching, writing, and creating resources that help others befriend their bodies, whether you’re a professional, a student of SE®, or someone on your own healing journey.

A Lifelong Love of Co-Regulation

One of the most beautiful discoveries in this work is what we call co-regulation. Healing doesn’t happen in isolation, it happens in relationship. When we track the nervous system together, ease and presence begin to emerge naturally. Rather than draining me, this kind of attunement nourishes both of us. Most days I end my work feeling more inspired than when I began.

What I’ve Learned After 30 Years of Practice

Underneath most forms of suffering, I’ve found a common thread: the body’s survival responses: fight, flight, and freeze get stuck in the “on” position.

Once we learn to listen to the body’s signals and gently guide the nervous system back to safety, everything changes.

Sleep improves. Relationships soften. Life begins to flow again.

The essence of what I teach: how to recognize your body’s own intelligence and build a working relationship with it. Because your body isn’t the problem, it’s the path home. I help people discover and use their Owner’s Manual.

What I’m Creating Now

My current work brings these teachings to a wider audience through:

The Book: The Owner’s Manual for Befriending Your Body: The Nervous System Skills You Were Never Taught
Free Mini-Course – Befriending Your Body: A simple introduction to understanding your nervous system in daily life
In-Depth Befriending Your Body Course: 21 lessons in seven modules, discovering how to use your Owner’s Manual
Professional Circle: A live small-group experience for therapists, healers, and educators who want to integrate this work with depth and authenticity

All of these offerings are designed to help you embody Polyvagal Theory in a real, human way, living with rhythm, curiosity, and compassion, and rediscovering what e.e. cummings called the courage to “grow up and turn out to be who you really are.”

The Office

The office windows look out on a lovely forest in the Johnson Creek Watershed and I’m delighted to offer nature-based therapy to support nervous system regulation. Clients can also take advantage of the 16 acre wooded and creek Leach Botanical Garden across the street.

Violet, rescued from living on the streets in Portland Oregon, delights in demonstrating the pleasure of co-regulation and Somatic Experiencing® principles for those who enjoy dogs.

My Experience

Not only do I have over 30,000 hours in face-to-face work with clients, I have also worked in the business world in international trade as well as a University research director and as a professional artist and teacher.

But what really matters is that I practice what I teach, so I know it works.

Location of Self

I am a cis-gendered woman of European farmer lineage from Norway, Ireland and Germany. Some of whom immigrated to this continent seeking religious freedom. My maternal line settled on the plains of North Dakota. And my paternal line traveled by covered wagon to form the Aurora Colony.

I acknowledge that the land where I am located rests on the unceded lands of the Multnomah, Cathlamet, Clackamas, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla, bands of the Chinook, and many other Tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River and hunted along Johnson Creek.

I also acknowledge the systemic policies of genocide, relocation, and assimilation that still impact Indigenous/Native American families today. I am a guest on these lands.

I am grateful to the Cedar, Doug Fir and Big Leaf Maple habitat in the Johnson Creek Watershed, and all the creatures and plants in this beautiful ecosystem, including the white-tailed deer, raccoon, opossum, coyote, short-tailed weasel, beaver, frogs, salamanders, pileated woodpecker, great horned owl, pacific wren, chickadee to name a few. I am part of group of mostly European neighbors, working together to restore a quarter-mile habitat along Johnson Creek.

Psychotherapy

Private Practice psychotherapist since 1998, Pastoral Counselor from 1985 to 1998.
Outpatient psychotherapist at Providence Hospital Chemical Dependency for 8 years
Milieu manager at Legacy Children’s Hospital Eating Disorder Unit
Other group and individual therapy experience includes: Programa Hispano, YWCA Counseling, Portland Alternative Health Center, Northwest Treatment Services

Group Therapy Experience

Providence Hospital; Legacy Children’s Hospital, Programa Hispano, Portland Alternative Health Center, Northwest Treatment; Women’s Support Group for 7 years, Earth School Institute. Over the span of my career, I have provided over 10,000 face to face hours of group therapy.

Education and Licensure

Masters degree in Social Work from Portland State University
Bachelor and Masters of Science in Sociology, Minor in Statistics from Portland State University, graduated with honors
State Board of Clinical Social Workers, license # 3583
2000 hours of supervised face to face clinical work

Training

Somatic Experiencing®, Foundation for Human Enrichment, Peter Levine PhD. Certificate earned in 2012, over 1890 hours of CEU training since 2010, over 350 hours of personal sessions and consultation. I assist as Somatic Experiencing® trainings in Portland and on the West Coast. If this depth training was for college credit, I’d have the equivalent of a PhD in somatic therapy. I approved to offer sessions and case consults at all levels of Somatic Experiencing® training, as well as group case consults.
Nature Connection and Shikari Method Mentoring with Josh Lane, student of Jon Young of the 8 Shields Institute and Art of Mentoring
SoulCollage® Trainer of Facilitators, started Regional SoulCollage® Facilitator program
SoulCollage® Facilitator
Motivational Interviewing – Providence Behavioral Health
Interpersonal Neurobiology Applications: Mental Health and Addictions
Brain Science and Behavior, Daniel Amen MD
Supervision for licensure with Dave Johnson LCSW, Providence Hospital
Clinical supervision with Bill Kruger LCSW, graduate of Masterson Institute and treatment of personality disorder, Clinical Director at Providence Crisis Triage for 22 years
Clinical supervision Susie Snyder LCSW, Adjunct faculty at PSU School of Social Work, Group supervision, Brief Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Solution Focused Therapy
Gottman Institute of Marital Therapy
Narrative Therapy with Susie Snyder LCSW
New England School of Homeopathy, Amherst MA, Dr. Paul Herscu
Lakota Spirituality with Patricia Spradling at the Wy’East Center
Vipassana Meditation at the Northwest Vipassana Center
Conscious Relationship Training with Gaye and Kathlyn Hendricks PhD – Hendricks Institute
Conscious Breathing with Gaye Hendricks PhD – Hendricks Institute Body Centered Therapy
Classical Homeopathy training at New England School of Homeopathy
Meditation Teacher Training at WPI
Intuition Training at WPI

Presentations & Publications

“SoulCollage®: Letting Your Soul Speak Through Art,” July 2008, New Connexion Magazine
“Externalization: Using SoulCollage® to Manage Mental Health & Addiction Issues” Continuing Education seminar for mental health professionals
“Externalization: Using SoulCollage® to Manage Mental Health & Addiction Issues,” presented at First Annual SoulCollage Facilitators Conference, Santa Cruz CA November 2007
“Empathic Confrontation: Helping Clients with BPD Contain Problem Emotions and Behaviors,” Presentation to Kaiser Beaverton Mental Health, August 2000
“Finding the Simillimum in Borderline Personality Disorder: a Guide for Doctors. Simillimum – International Journal of the Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians, Spring 2000.
“Integrating Spirituality in the Treatment of Sexual Abuse,” University of Arizona Conference, Spirituality, Healing and Health: Transformative Vision, April 1999
“Integrating Spirituality in the Treatment of Sexual Abuse,” Presented at NASW Oregon State Conference, October 1998
“Housing the Homeless, Review of Current Literature Regional Research Institute, Regional Research Institute, PSU, 1997
“Land Use, Community and Subsistence Patterns in Rural and Urban Alaskan Residents,” Institute of Social & Economic Research, University of Alaska, March 1979
“Sampling Methods for Double-ended Sample Distributions,” University of Alaska, 1979

Work Experience In the Business World

Co-Founder & Director of Counseling Services of Portland 2010 – 2018
Coaching therapists and SoulCollage® facilitators in business development and marketing
Executive Director for Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians
Founder Earth School Institute for Mind-Body-Soul Integration
Marketing Manager for International Trade Services
Research Director at University of Alaska in Fairbanks, Institute of Social and Economic Research
Statistics Instructor for Wildlife Biology at University of Alaska Fairbanks
Research Assistant Center for Population Research at the Portland Census Bureau
Graphic Designer and Calligrapher at Northwest Pencraft
Artist & Art Teacher at Art and Soul Retreats, Portland Community College, Breitenbush Hot springs, DIY Lounge