We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Arielle Schwartz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Arielle, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

I grew up with a lot of anxiety. While I had been introduced to yoga as a child, I had lost interest as a teenager. However, my anxiety had worsened when I left home for college. When I was 19 a friend of mind took me to a yoga class. While in yoga, I found a sense of peace and ease that lingered after class. I started to go to classes more regularly and noticed that I consistently felt better. Within a year I had a daily practice and I completed my yoga teacher training when I was 22. As a result of this experience I devoted much of my professional life to understand how yoga and other body-centered approaches are valuable within mental health care. This spurred me to pursue a career in somatic psychology and due my doctoral dissertation on the integration of mind-body therapies into psychology.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a clinical psychologist who focuses on trauma recovery from a resilience informed approach. This means that rather than focusing solely on the symptoms or “what is wrong” with a person, I focus on building upon the strengths within an individual as well as enhancing their access to resources. A resilience informed approach to therapy integrates mind-body therapies such as somatic psychology, EMDR therapy, parts work therapies, and therapeutic yoga within a relational foundation of care. I teach therapeutic yoga for trauma and have written 7 books on the topic of trauma recovery and post-traumatic growth.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Beginning in 2002 I opened my private practice as a psychotherapist. At that stage referrals came through word of mouth and I spent a lot of time bringing pamphlets and business cards around Boulder to get the word out about my work. I didn’t have a website until 2012. At that time I built my own website from scratch on wordpress. The only problem was that I didn’t have any SEO for the website and I didn’t show up on with any ranking on google. In 2013 I hired a website support person who changed my career. He helped me to build visibility by encouraging me to write a blog. It was at that stage that I realized I loved to write! My website support person helped me to share my blogs on linkedin and facebook. One of my blogs got a lot of traction and started getting over 1k views a day. In 2016 a publishing company reached out to me because of the popularity of the blog. By 2017 I had published my first book. By 2024 I have now published 7 books and have an 8th book in press. Not only did this build my reputation as an expert in the field, but I received feedback from people around the world on a daily basis letting me know that my writings have helped them recover from trauma. This feedback is deeply meaningful.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

I believe that a thriving business is always rooted in the connections that we form with other people. For me, partnering with companies that have supported me to teach about mental health awareness and the resilience informed approach to therapy has been mutually beneficial. I teach for a wide range of groups including nonprofits around the world as well as therapist training groups to improve the quality of mental health care. Being able to form these business relationships with mutual respect has been a key to success.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://drarielleschwartz.com/ https://resilienceinformedtherapy.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arielleschwartzboulder/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drarielleschwartz/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arielle-schwartz-0756b62a/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrAschwartz
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5LUxnXbReV7I5cEzvb46sQ

Image Credits

Benjamin Buren with Alive Studios

Jes Kimak Photography