Heidi Frieze
Hi Potential Supervisees, Here’s a little bit about me:
I’m a certified AEDP Therapist and Supervisor with over 22 years of experience. I am located in Westchester, NY and the Hudson Valley, and I primarily work with individual adults and couples. I also have experience and enjoy working with adult sibling dyads and adult child-parent dyads.
I feel very fortunate to have found AEDP, my clinical home, early in my graduate school training. In fact, it was in my second year at Fordham University in 2004 that I stumbled into Diana Fosha’s first Immersion Course. Needless to say, she had me at “transformance,” and I was hooked from the get-go.
Since then, my AEDP journey has been shaped by numerous trainings, workshops, individual and small group supervisions, and by so many wonderful teachers and mentors including: Eileen Russell, Jeanne Newhouse, SueAnne Piliero and Ben Lipton. I also had the privilege of doing one year of Core Training with Diana.
I have assisted in numerous workshops and trainings at the Institute including: in-person Essential Skills modules under the helms of both SueAnne Piliero and Natasha Prenn; Immersion courses in person with Diana Fosha and online with Jerry Lamagna. I presented at an EALC salon on the nuts and bolts of EAing called, “What to Expect When You are Expecting to EA.”
I have a particular interest in community, connection and support and helped to build local AEDP communities by co-helming AEDP Metro NYC with esteemed colleagues Martina Verba, Judy Silberstein and Matt Fried. At one of our many “Learning Salon” gatherings, I gave a presentation titled, “IT’S NOT YOU IT’S ME: When therapists’ defenses impede patients’ efficient healing; Focusing on the “D” in AEDP.” I also co-launched the local AEDP Westchester community with Martina Verba, where I led meetings and book discussions and facilitated an experiential workshop during the 2020 election cycle titled, “The Age of Uncertainty.”
In my local community, I have focused on building community by leading psycho-spiritual “Red Tent” workshops for women for the past 10 years, and I recently launched an online 4 part psycho-spiritual workshop geared towards AEDP clinicians who are going through menopause called, “The Gifts of Menopause.” I have also recently begun to invite colleagues to join me in co-creating a regional AEDP community in the Hudson Valley, NY where I will be relocating in the Fall of 2026.
Prior to becoming a psychotherapist, I was a yoga teacher and yoga therapy practitioner. I primarily taught group classes in Bikram style (hot) yoga and gave private yoga therapy sessions as a practitioner of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy. I also hold a Masters Degree in Journalism from UC Berkeley.
My initial interest in AEDP came from its integrative body/mind approach and experiential focus, which fit perfectly with my yoga background. One of the main reasons I decided to branch out from yoga and pursue a deeper understanding of the mind through psychotherapy training was because of a number of encounters I had with yoga clients who were having somatic experiences that were out of my depth of understanding. Training in AEDP and reading works by body-based trauma pioneers such as Bessel Van Der Kolk and Peter Levine all helped to shape and integrate my understanding of the body/mind connection. I also really resonated with AEDP’s non-pathologizing, healing oriented stance and belief in the mind’s self-righting tendencies. Although not explicitly referenced in the early days of AEDP, I also deeply resonated with the spiritual quality of connection to Self that resulted from working with State 4 experiences, which was also meaningful and familiar to me from my work with yoga clients.
Currently, I continue to incorporate yoga principles and mindfulness into my AEDP psychotherapy practice as well as integrate principles from trainings in Attachment Focused EMDR, and numerous workshops including ones on spirituality and psychotherapy, healing ancestral trauma, working with shame, exploring the more subtle energy body, parts work, and memory reconsolidation just to name a few.
As a supervisor, I enjoy working with all levels of experience, and I have a particular interest in helping colleagues build an authentic voice and their sense of self as a therapist. I’m happy to work with supervisees on the “doing” of AEDP, the specific techniques and interventions such as moment to moment tracking, effective use of portrayals, working with emotions to completion, therapists’ use of self and self-disclosure on behalf of the patient. I am also very interested in helping therapists to cultivate the “being state” of AEDP through slowing down and cultivating deeper states of presence.
While I was personally drawn to the experiential aspects of AEDP, I also really like to discuss the “D” in AEDP by working with case conceptualization. I believe that it is a very important part of the work and can help to determine the most effective strategies for healing.
I also enjoy working with therapists who are newer to the AEDP model, helping them feel safe, comfortable and supported in learning the basics of videotaping and sharing their work, which can be vulnerable and scary at first.
Many supervisees find my style to be warm, engaging and easy-going. I tend to be affirming and use humor in the service of creating safety, reducing shame and supporting risk-taking and growth.
If you think you might be interested in doing supervision together, please reach out. I would love the opportunity to accompany you on your AEDP learning journey, helping you to go as far as you want for as long as it takes.
Warmly,
Heidi
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