Dear AEDP community, 

As Cici’s two primary supervisors, it’s our deep pleasure to announce that Cici Kinsman, a licensed therapist practicing in California, is now certified as an AEDP therapist. I (Jenn) had the pleasure to get to know Cici and witness her attuned and skillful work through the certification process.  I’m going to begin this announcement by letting you get to know Cici through her AEDP journey– in her own words. Cici writes: 

“I’m thrilled and a bit in awe that this day has come. I’m grateful to Jenn Edlin for her tremendous supervisory skill and generosity, and her stealth way of helping melt self-doubt. I’m also grateful to Ilene Yasemsky for seeing me and helping me get over the finish line with her playful warmth and steady confidence in my work. 

“AEDP, and Diana, made an indelible imprint on me when I heard her present while I was in graduate school. I was blown away and felt an immediate sense of resonance, a clear “yes!” My worries that I was going to have to make some big change in my personality in order to become an adequately reserved and detached therapist melted away—Diana laid out so clearly how the opposite was true. 

“As I pursued post-graduate training in relational and psychodynamic therapy, I always kept AEDP in my sights as a beacon of what “relational” really felt like. I attended Immersion in 2014 in New York City, at the once-regal Pennsylvania Hotel, where I felt welcomed and at home with others drawn to the model. I had found my people. 

“Over the years of training, my work became more grounded in AEDP practice, though I hadn’t yet committed to the certification process. In early 2024, I decided to finally make the ascent.

“Immersing myself in individual and group supervision has profoundly deepened my work with clients. Being met with steadiness, curiosity, and relational support has helped me feel more confident and less alone as a therapist (and a human). In the background, there’s been a quiet but huge impact on my own growth, healing, and my ability to trust myself. 

“I’m deeply grateful for AEDP as a living and evolving model, and for the teachers, mentors, colleagues, and supervisors without whose accompaniment and support I would have stayed at the bottom of the mountain—at the gift shop.

“This journey has led me to a “this is me” truth sense—a State Four experience of myself as both a person and a therapist, and I’m full of excitement for what comes next.”

************************

Cici’s first reviewer wrote the following of her work: 

CiCi’s work was brave. What struck me most was her presence and steadfast capacity

to connect deeply to her patients – giving them an experience of secure attachment at

the level each needed. CiCi was skillfull when doing intra-parts work, really helping her patient connect and stay with young and wounded parts….  In particular, her use of self to undo aloneness and privilege emergence was notable.

The second reviewer added: The therapist is deeply tuned in and ready to provide what is needed…. The deep attunement was present in a way that was not theoretical but extremely honest. 

****************

Cici struck us both as someone who has made AEDP their own.  From the moment I (Jenn) saw her work her undoing of aloneness and use of self stood out to me. She allows AEDP to flow through her in her unique way that makes me want to find the best in myself and embody that even more (and I think calls this forth in her clients as well). 

Cici shows a remarkable ability to meet clients where they are and then disarm their defenses. Using curiosity, her self and attuned pacing, she slows clients down into an experience.  Her energy, genuine interest in her clients and her care for them shines through. I’m so delighted for our community that her skill and heart get to now be known more broadly.

I (Ilene) had the pleasure of being Cici’s second certification supervisor.  Her tapes were beautiful, deep, and real.  What I love most about Cici, in addition to all of what has already been said, is how she would discover something new each time she watched her certification tapes or reviewed her annotated transcripts.  And, with each new discovery, observation, or question, I felt the aliveness in her relationships with her clients, with herself, and with AEDP.  If you watched her tapes, you too would feel this aliveness in her very-present presence, in the genuine care that comes through in her face and her words, and in her obvious devotion to truly helping.  It is very AEDP to always see or feel something else, to imagine other ways of being or intervening, to stay open to all corners of transformance—when I think of Cici, I think of how well she represents this heart of AEDP.  I celebrate her certification with much joy and applause.

Should you wish to congratulate Cici, please write to her at cicikinsmanmft@gmail.com. 

With warmth and excitement,

Jenn and Ilene

Cici Kinsman’s directory listing- here

Dear Esteemed Global AEDP® Community,

On behalf of Jacquie H. Ye Perman and I, we have the privilege to announce Professor Juwon Oh from South Korea has officially attained the status of Certified AEDP® Therapist.

As Juwon’s clinical supervisor, Jacquie and I had the opportunity to bear witness to her work. Juwon’s innate, natural, and gifted capacity in working with AEDP® has been consistently impressive. Observing Juwon’s work in her clinical video recordings, we are consistently struck by her mindful presence with her clients. Her embodiment of loving kindness, curiosity, openness, and acceptance is evident and palpable.

Juwon’s unwavering dedication to AEDP® training is commendable. She has demonstrated remarkable resilience by enduring the rigorous and challenging process of attending the Immersion Course in Korea and the Essential Skills course in North America. In both clinical cases submitted for certification, Juwon has demonstrated exceptional competence in stance skills and spirit as an AEDP® therapist.

—————————————–

Here is what Juwon’s certification reviewers shared about her:

Watching these sessions, I experienced the therapist as grounded, steady, and emotionally present. There is a calm patience in the therapist’s pacing that allows the client’s innerexperience to unfold naturally. I felt the therapist’s genuine care and receptivity throughout the work. Particularly in the exploration of early anger, the therapist’s presence created a relational field in which deeply held affect could safely emerge and transform. I found myself moved by the client’s journey from distress and anger toward relief, connection, and joy, and by the therapist’s steady accompaniment of that process. I was equally moved by the therapist’s firm advocacy for the client’s inner child in the early treatment tape, and the meeting of the two relationally in State 4 at the end.

This therapist demonstrates a warm, attuned presence that consistently supports undoing aloneness. Throughout both sessions the therapist maintains a steady relational field that allows the client to access emotionally significant material while remaining connected to self and to the therapist. The therapist shows particular skill in recognizing and amplifying transformance strivings. Moments of courage, vitality, and self-recognition are noticed and supported, helping the client deepen into emerging positive experience. The therapist’s pacing is thoughtful and patient, and her comfort with silence allows the client’s emotional process to unfold organically, yet in a manner it would not have without the therapist’s support.

Importantly, the therapist demonstrates trust in the client’s innate healing trajectory. By maintaining presence and supporting experiential processing, the therapist allows the client’s natural transformance strivings to guide the therapeutic process. In both tapes the therapist guides the client from painful early experience into the transfomation of State 3 and new knowing and ease of State 4, with skill and ease.

The therapist’s attunement and trust shines through as does her deep knowing of the model and ability to match it both to her own presence and to the culture in which she practices.

The other reviewer notes:

Juwon demonstrated brave and skillful work in helping Patient 1 recall a traumatic sexual assault. The therapists presence ushered her patient from not wanting to approach this painful memory (state 1) to processing the terror and shame (state 2) to expansion and trancendance (literarally one with the earth (state 3) to grounded peace (state 4.) I felt priviledged to watch this work in Korean. It was stellar! 

Juwon embodied her role as the “older wiser other.” Undoing aloneness of the patient’s child part, the patient was able to feel liberation from the shame and fear that had been curtailing her life until this session. Powerful! 

In Tape 2 what struck me most was the quality of allowing emergence. In her work with anger, orginating in the womb, Juwon faciliated deep connection to her patient’s younger self, her patient’s body, and her parents. At the end, the presence and transformational catalyst of God appears — the patient is the daughter of a pastor. Juwon integrates God and spirituality in a skillful and accepting way that the patient deeply feels and uses. Metaprocessing confirms that the patient has indeed noticed significant changes in her life over the past several sessions. 

According to Juwon’s notes, anger at one’s parents in Korea is taboo. So working with anger is especially trickly. Juwon navigated the conflict between showing anger at parents and processing anger at parents with compassion and skill. 

Juwon is a brave and present therapist who uses fantasy skillfully. She converys a deep understanding of the 9+1 Change Mechanisms and demonstrates them well in these video tapes. She uses herself to affirm and regulate her patients. She shows competancy in AEDP® methods. And her knowledge of AEDP® theory is evident from the transcripts. 

———————————-

Please join us in congratulating Professor Juwon Oh in sending her a private message: mkoh82@naver.com

Warmly

Danny 

Danny Yeung MD CCFP MDPAC(C) FCFP

Assistant Professor, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Senior Faculty & Chair of International Development Committee, AEDP® Institute
2830 Keele Street, Suite 402,
Downsview, Ontario

Dear all,

I’m delighted to announce that Yi-Fang (Evon) Chiu has been certified as an AEDP therapist! 

I have had the privilege of accompanying Yi-Fang on her AEDP journey toward certification and have been deeply impressed by her dedication and growth. She has developed a strong and attuned therapeutic presence, marked by clarity and heart, creating a safe and creative space where patients can explore previously uncharted experiences and move from “small or no selves” toward growth, healing, and transformation. Her awareness of how historical and cultural contexts shape emotional and relational patterns meaningfully supports her patients’ developmental progress. In addition to her clinical work, Yi-Fang’s article in Transformance Journal, Issue 14 — “Culturally Attuned AEDP for Attachment Integration: Four Internal Working Models of a Taiwanese Adopted Migrant Boy” — together with her presentations at multicultural conferences in various locations across the USA, demonstrates how dedicated she is to applying and further developing the AEDP model both at the individual level and within the broader cultural context. The work she presents with her patients in her certification videos can best be described as art. She is truly a gift to our community.

Her reviewers note: (mid phase client)“Yi-Fang begins with a gentle, collaborative invitation, guiding the client to bypass intellectualized defenses and drop into the somatic experience. In this safe, dyadic

container, the client’s “little self” feels securely attached, undoing Aloneness….. This experiential journey culminates in a solid, “one whole person” state. In the calm of State 4, they reconstruct her auto-biographical narrative, transforming past invisibility into a shared, State 3 “magical” sense of wholeness and admiration.”

“This is thoughtful, grounded, and deeply attuned AEDP work that reflects both clinical maturity and a strong embodiment of AEDP principles. Yi Fang’s work clearly demonstrates readiness for AEDP certification, and it was a pleasure to watch. Yes for Yi Fang!” 

With her own words, Yi-Fang writes of her AEDP Journey:

“My journey with AEDP began in the summer of 2023, when I attended the Immersion. It was love at first sight—AEDP immediately felt like my clinical home. That sense of home is what carried me through the challenges that followed.

Tuition and time zone differences were significant, and I am deeply grateful to have received the AEDP Diversity Scholarship. In my application, I wrote that I would cherish this opportunity, study with dedication, and bring AEDP back to Taiwan—and I have kept that promise. All of my classes took place between 11:00 p.m. and 3:30 a.m. Taiwan time. I completed every course and experiential exercise during those late-night hours. I never quit.

Along the way, I realized I was becoming the first person from Taiwan to complete AEDP certification. I carried that responsibility with seriousness and pride—not only for myself, but for my country.

Giving back has been an important part of my journey. I volunteered multiple times as an EA and founded Global Voice in AEDP, a culturally attuned support group for international practitioners that continues today. This is one of the ways I contribute to strengthening multicultural awareness and inclusion within the AEDP community.

I am especially grateful to my supervisor, Annika Medbo, whose supervision allowed me to feel deeply seen beyond culture, language, and nationality. Each session was profoundly meaningful and healing. Her extraordinary gift of recognizing the core self in others has guided me to connect with my own strengths and grow into my fullest potential—truly a model of what AEDP embodies.

Before joining AEDP, I had already founded the Taiwan Multicultural Counseling Association. Today, AEDP is a core foundation of how I continue this work—developing intergenerational trauma–informed curricula rooted in local culture and history, while staying in active dialogue with therapists across Asia and Western countries. I have also been honored to be selected as a workshop speaker at the American Counseling Association Annual Convention for two consecutive years, where I continue to share AEDP with international therapists.

I hold AEDP with deep gratitude—not only in bringing it into Taiwan, but also in continuing to contribute within the AEDP community and through international conferences, helping more people experience its healing power across cultures.”

Please join me in celebrating Yi-Fang’s accomplishment. If you would like
to reach out to her please do so back-channel: chiucounseling@gmail.com

With excitement and warmth,

Annika

Yi Fang Chiu Directory Listing- Here

Annika Medbo
Licensed Psychotherapist, Licensed Physiotherapist
Stockholm, Sweden
Certified AEDP therapist & Supervisor
Faculty, AEDP Institute
+4670 731 70 48

Dear friends and colleagues, 

Ben Medley and I are happy to announce that Casey Lee is now a Certified AEDP Therapist! 
Casey is a gentle, empathic, and highly skilled clinician who brings a spacious and grounding presence to his work and his therapeutic relationships. His care is palpable, as he consistently invites patients into their somatic-affective experience, and guides them through their change processes, artfully balancing leading and following. Casey’s video examples clearly illustrate his relational skills and his ability to work effectively in all four states of AEDP’s  transformational process. 

Here’s what Ben Medley’s had to say about supervising Casey:”Casey has been a member of an AEDP certification group that I have supervised for several years. From the get-go, I was struck by Casey’s warmth and care as a therapist. He works hard to help clients shift from experiences of suffering and distress to an embodied sense of their selves-at-best. He meets each client with the AEDP stance of compassion, calm and curiosity; welcomes each person’s affective experience; and seeks to undo their aloneness relationally. I have seen many clients express the transformational affects of feeling gratitude in their sessions with Casey. As a group member, Casey has been invaluable, bringing the same qualities I have witnessed in sessions to his support of his friends and colleagues all while striving for clinical excellence as an AEDP therapist. Congratulations, Casey!”

Here’s some of what the reviewers had to say about Casey’s work: 
“I found Casey to be likeable, personable, warm and supportive of his clients.  He partners with them to facilitate the work of healing.  He is good at seeing and resonating with clients and helping them put words to and explore their emotional experience.  One can tell that they feel seen, understood, and helped.””Casey has a good understanding of AEDP theory and skills.  He recognizes opportunities for growth and exploration and forges a path forward.  He is able to facilitate healing so that clients feel helped and in a different place than when they started.” 

Casey’s reflections on his AEDP journey:
I’m Casey Lee and I I have a private practice Rooted Hearts Counseling in Columbia, SC and work with individuals and couples in person or virtually within the State. I was born in Hong Kong, grew up in Canada, and now live in South Carolina with my wife and 6 year old triplet boys. Looking back in my journey, it makes a lot of sense why I am deeply drawn to AEDP.

When I was in grad school I had to write a paper on my paradigm for change. I wrote that I believe the main “problem” is disconnection from self, others, and God (something or someone larger and beyond us) and that change comes from connecting with self, others, and God. The centrality of attachment and creating a secure attachment with self, others, and God is what I feel our hearts long for. 
I also remember one of my favorite classes in undergrad was positive psychology. I felt so alive, hopeful, and energized learning about flow and resilience. If there was a picture to describe the course it would be the front cover of the AEDP 2.0 book. The focus on the green plant shooting through barren rocks. 

So AEDP’s focus on undoing aloneness and on transformance resonated deeply with what moves and energizes me deeply. AEDP is where I feel at home, where I feel like myself. And in this home I have “family” who have been a huge support for me in this journey of learning AEDP. Thank you Richard Harrison and Ben Medley for being a safe and supportive place for me to watch my videos with and learn the theoretical and practical ways to doing and being an AEDP therapist. I appreciate the way you both model AEDP and I often feel less alone with you in reviewing my sessions. I also have learned so much being in our “Forever Ben” group with you James McCracken, Jenna Teves, and Kelly Bozard through watching your work and hearing your feedback. Thanks for undoing my aloneness in learning as well!
Please join me in congratulating Casey on this significant achievement and well-deserved recognition. You can do so by writing to him directly at: casey@rootedheartscounseling.com

Bravo, Casey!
Richard
* * * * * Richard Harrison, PhD, R.Psych. (#1855)

Casey Lee’s Directory Listing- Here

Dear Beloved Community:

It is with so much joy that I share this news: Chiaki Yamada is now a certified AEDP® therapist! 🎉

I had the privilege of serving as her certification supervisor, and I have been genuinely moved watching her grow through the process of preparing her certification materials.

Below are words from her long-term clinical supervisor, Yuko Kobayashi:

Chiaki has been one of the precious supervisees I have worked with since the earlier years of my journey as an AEDP Certified Supervisor. Because of that, it does not feel as though I have simply been witnessing her growth from afar — rather, it feels as though we have grown together along the way.

As a Japanese psychologist living and working in France, Chiaki has continued to nurture and protect the kind of clinical work she deeply believes in, despite the loneliness and challenges that can come with being in a different culture and language. I feel truly honored to have accompanied her as her supervisor throughout this journey.

I was deeply moved many times by the courage and strength it took for her to engage in experiential work in her second language, while navigating both time differences and language barriers. It has not been an easy path, and because we have moved through so many struggles and challenges together, this certification feels almost as joyful and emotional to me as if it were my own.

Chiaki’s sensitivity, deep kindness, and careful attunement to the inner world of others are truly beautiful qualities in a therapist. I have no doubt that she will continue to support profound healing and transformation for many people in the years ahead.

Chiaki, congratulations from the bottom of my heart on becoming an AEDP Certified Therapist. I am so excited to witness all that lies ahead for you.

---

And in Chiaki’s own words, her AEDP® journey:

My journey with AEDP began through a book by Yuko Hanakawa Ph.D., which was introduced to me by a psychologist colleague and friend. Working clinically in France, I was deeply drawn to AEDP’s emphasis on emotion, attachment, and the healing power of relationship. Because formal AEDP training was available to me only in English, I gradually strengthened my conversational English so that I could participate more fully in the experiential aspects of the training. Entering experiential work in a second language brought significant anxiety at times, but that process itself became part of my own transformational journey.

As a Japanese psychologist practicing in France, I have often experienced the challenges of being a cultural and linguistic minority, as well as the limitations and vulnerability that come with working in non-native languages. AEDP is also still relatively unknown in France, both among mental health professionals and the general public, and there were times when I felt alone, wondering whether I was doing something very different from those around me. Through supervision and learning spaces, however, I experienced a profound sense of undoing aloneness — realizing that I was not alone in the way I was working and understanding therapy. That relational support has sustained me throughout this journey. Receiving certification has allowed me to more deeply recognize that the relational presence I bring into the therapy room can truly support transformation and healing. That recognition has felt both grounding and quietly moving for me. I feel deeply grateful to the teachers, supervisors, therapists, EAs, LAs, colleagues, and clients whose presence, encouragement, and support have accompanied me throughout this journey.

---

Her reviewers’ responses say it beautifully:

Reviewer 1: It has been a profound delight to review Chiaki’s clinical work. She fully embodies the spirit of AEDP through her exceptional relational skills, creating deep safety with her warmth, explicit affirmation, and exquisitely attuned presence. With remarkable somatic precision, Chiaki skillfully guides clients from anxiety about emotion into rich core affect processing, skillfully tracking glimmers of transformation toward resilience, integration, and authentic self-connection. Her outstanding capacity for dyadic regulation and intersubjective expansion, along with her seamless movement between implicit and explicit processing, marks her as a truly gifted and compassionate AEDP clinician.

Reviewer 2: Chiaki Yamada has a calm and holding presence that feels instantly settling for me as the audience. The quality of her companionship, her tracking of the client, verbally and non-verbally, and explicit attunement, was gentle, consistent, and evidently regulating for the client. With the palpable safety she co-created with clients, she made it a clear and sturdy focus for the clients to explore, feel, deepen, and understand their affective experiences, both in regard to difficult experiences and new positive experiences. Her work was an excellent example of the transforming power of a new attachment experience, where the therapist is received as an older and wiser, resourceful and emotionally available attachment figure.

---

If you would like to join me in congratulating Chiaki, her email is yamadachiaki8@gmail.com.

Please join me in celebrating Chiaki’s beautiful milestone! 🩷

With so much excitement, joy, and pride, 

Yuko Hanakawa– 

Kindly,

Yuko Hanakawa, Ph.D.

Chiaka Yamada’s Directory Listing- Here

Dear AEDP community,

I am delighted to announce that Sara Lesser is now certified as an AEDP therapist. 

I have had the joy of knowing Sara as part of the AEDP SF Bay Area community since 2012. Her balance of both left and right brain immediately stood out to me. As her supervisor in more recent years, her mastery of AEDP and her ability to find what was needed most in the moment with each client stood out. She has clearly spent years allowing AEDP to flow through her, to the point it feels seamless in her work. In particular, her ability to join with her clients and delight in them, with deep authenticity, stands out to me as a true strength of hers. She is able to be real with people in a way that disarms their defenses and creates strong therapeutic alliances. But what I love most are the moments I get to witness Sara and her clients laughing, delighting and expanding in States 3 and 4.  

Sara loves diving into the challenge of moment by moment tracking and matching theory to practice. We delighted in spending whole sessions trying to really understand what exactly was happening in certain moments of her tape, and her transcripts showed her dedication to this process. 

Many of you may already know Sara as an assistant. She has been assisting  in AEDP courses for over 10 years.  For those of you who may not know her, here is what Sara writes of her journey:  

From the beginning of learning to be a therapist, I regularly asked “what creates sustained change and healing in clients?” The quest for the answer kept me searching, until I found AEDP. 

I first attended immersion in 2012 In Vancouver. I sat in the room crying, having a transformational experience of feeling seen and a sense of rightness.  I was blown away by having Diana describe, demonstrate and then break down AEDP into actionable interventions, allowing me to imagine and giving me permission to expand my natural ways of working. Finding out that there was a model I could learn, that privileged transformance over pathology and believed in the self- righting capacity inside of all of us, spoke to my own beliefs about humanity. As a person who is deeply committed to social justice, I love that this model believes in the client’s agency and capacity for healing, regardless of their trauma or circumstances. 

I am very grateful to the many years of amazing experiences I have had learning AEDP. Thank you to all the incredible colleagues, faculty and supervisors for your accompaniment, brilliance, laughter, and profound care. I could not have gotten here without you! 

AEDP has changed my life for the better, both personally and professionally. I love this model for the way it allows me to be my best self and it invites the type of sustained change in clients, that I always knew I wanted to be able to help people experience, but I didn’t know how before I learned AEDP. 

***********

Sara’s first reviewer writes of her work: 

It is obvious from both of the recorded sessions that Sara has been steeped in AEDP for many years. Both her grasp of theory, demonstrated in the (beautifully executed) transcripts, and the recorded sessions, show that those years have been well spent, deepening and honing her AEDP skills and stance.

I felt so glad for both Sara’s clients; the “new” one and the long term one, to have the benefit of a relationship with a therapist so wholly present and steady.

Her second reviewer adds:

Even as the reviewer, I felt myself entering into Sara Lesser’s dyadic joy in her work, and my own profound experiences of gratitude and warmth. Sara’s subtlety, while yielding a clear and explicit relational “knowing”, is what felt most “right” and deeply moving for me in her AEDP work. The dyadic resonance she creates for both her early and long-term clients is beautiful to witness. Its tough to find words to describe the power of her gentle, intelligent, thoroughly authentic grace in leading and following— over and over again— using many of our tried and true Affective Change Mechanisms, to bring both clients into remarkable healing spirals of transformation from long-held traumatic pain.

If you would like to join me in congratulating Sara her email is saralesser@sbcglobal.net.

Brava Sara!

With much warmth and great excitement for both you and our community,

Sara’s Directory Listing- Here

Jenn

Jennifer Edlin, MFT
Senior Faculty, AEDP Institute 
510-239-3932
www.JenniferEdlin.com

Dear AEDP Community,

It is with great joy that I announce that Kaori Yoshijima has been formally recognized as a Certified AEDP Therapist.

I have had the privilege of serving as Kaori’s certification supervisor throughout this process, and it has been deeply meaningful to witness the integrity, dedication, and relational sensitivity she brings to her work. Kaori embodies the spirit of AEDP not only through her clinical skill, but through the humanity and values that guide her therapeutic presence.

Even prior to discovering AEDP, Kaori had already dedicated herself to working with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, as well as immigrants and marginalized communities. Her work has consistently reflected a deep commitment to social justice and profound respect for the resilience and dignity of those who have experienced suffering and disconnection. This foundation has allowed her to resonate naturally with the transformational and relational ethos of AEDP.

Kaori’s AEDP journey also reflects remarkable perseverance and initiative. She first encountered AEDP while living in the Kansai region of Japan, at a time when there were very limited opportunities to study the model locally and almost no established AEDP community nearby. Despite this, she actively sought out learning opportunities, traveled internationally for training, and collaborated with fellow Japanese therapists to create spaces for ongoing study and mutual support. Through these sustained efforts, she has contributed meaningfully to the growth of AEDP within Japan.

Clinically, Kaori demonstrates a deeply attuned and grounded therapeutic presence. She possesses remarkable sensitivity to subtle emotional and somatic shifts and works with flexibility, patience, and precision. What stands out most in her work is her deep commitment to understanding each client’s unique background and context with great care and sensitivity. She listens closely to the relational histories, environments, and lived experiential worlds that each individual client carries, and she applies AEDP in ways that feel most natural, safe, and attuned to that particular person. Rather than applying interventions or theory in a mechanical or formulaic manner, Kaori stays closely connected to the client’s moment-to-moment experience, thoughtfully adjusting her pacing and relational stance to foster safety, trust, and transformation. There is a profound depth in the way she integrates AEDP in response to each client’s unique context.

Beyond her individual clinical work, Kaori’s dedication to collaborative learning and community-building has been deeply inspiring. Through peer study groups, training participation, and ongoing dialogue with fellow therapists, she has helped nurture the emerging AEDP community in Japan with sincerity and generosity.

The AEDP certification reviewers offered the following reflections on Kaori’s work:

One reviewer wrote:

“There is such a gentle and tender relationship between therapist and client demonstrated in each tape. The safety that the clients feel with the therapist is palpable and I can see the transformation taking shape in the work. I am so impressed with the attunement and the pacing of the work. Particularly the long moments of silence where the client is invited to explore their internal world while the therapist maintains a connected presence and a holding space for the client to access themselves.

I am impressed with all you have done to learn AEDP, and proud of you for the work you showed in your clips. I can see your heart, mind, dedication and passion for helping your clients heal ❤️”

Another reviewer shared:

“I was calmed and assured by Kaori’s gentle, calm, patient, and skillful presence. She was gentle yet incisive, helping her clients go deep in healing ways. These were two beautiful AEDP sessions. Brava!

Kaori seemed masterful in her AEDP stance and technique. She was talented in her ability to stay present and regulated amidst long silences when her clients were clearly processing. Her questions and scaffolding statements brought her clients into healing experiences with a mixture of portrayals, somatic focus, and allowing ample time for processing to completion. She demonstrated how to skillfully move her patients from state 1 to state 4 — beautifully validating defenses, undoing aloneness, and helping them drop into their body. This was great AEDP.”

And finally, in Kaori’s own words:

“The first emotion to arise upon receiving notice of my certification was a mourning affect. It had been a long and challenging journey, and the complex mix of emotions from finally reaching my goal overwhelmed me. My tears also told me that I had achieved. After savoring these tears for a while, a sense of pride in myself arose.

This was the very essence of the transformative experience of AEDP.

That I have come to be able to savor my emotions so fully, to entrust myself to their natural unfolding — this, too, is a gift borne of AEDP training. AEDP fosters the therapist’s own transformation through the training process, and my own experience clearly exemplified that. 

My encounter with AEDP has provided a clinical psychological framework for what I have long regarded as essential in my work not only in individual psychotherapy, but also in practice within organizations, groups, and communities. It has enabled me to approach the individual and the social as a continuum, and has proven invaluable in facilitating collaboration with a diverse range of institutions and practitioners. 

I did not complete this difficult journey alone; it was only with the help of peers and supervisors. My deepest appreciation goes to them.

I am also so grateful to my patients who granted permission to record the sessions and utilize them as part of my certification application, and for the privilege of having been present at the site of their remarkable transformational experiences.

I chose the field of psychotherapy to contribute to the realization of social justice. My Master’s advisor once said, “Psychotherapy brings peace to the client’s heart. Psychotherapy is practiced to bring peace to the world.”

Isolation and loneliness lead to division, and division leads to isolation and loneliness. One of the core convictions of AEDP — undoing aloneness — is one I intend to continue embodying in my practice.”

Please join me in warmly celebrating Kaori’s well-deserved achievement by sending your congratulations to her at play.it.by.trust@gmail.com as we welcome her as a Certified AEDP Therapist.

See Kaori’s therapist Directory listing here

Warmly,Yuko Kobayashi, LMHC, LPCC
Certified AEDP Supervisor

It is my pleasure to announce that Ms. Kate CHAN Yin Shan has become a Certified
AEDP Therapist in Hong Kong. As his supervisor, I am very happy to be a partner with
her in this certification process, recognizing her dream comes true to become a
certified member of our global AEDP community. Kate completed the Level I, II and
III training and supervision in Hong Kong from 2019 to 2023. After that, she not only
kept continuous learning and active participation in AEDP Salon, Book Club and
Advanced Seminars, but also contributed her expertise in being an experiential
helper in the AEDP training in HK. I am impressed by her strong commitment to
engage herself in the AEDP spirit and the community.

I am also impressed by her great efforts and practice wisdom she demonstrated in
the process of making the paradigm shift of intervention from Cognitive-Behavioral
Therapy as her usual practice to the AEDP model of intervention. I witness how
determined and thoughtful she has worked to somehow un-learn her usual “top-
down” practice and re-learn the “bottom-up” affective-relational model of practice.
For Kate, this shift and attempts is not only in terms of skills and knowledge, but also
related to her self-related process of trust, identity and spirituality.

During my supervision with her, I witnessed that Kate is able to demonstrate how
proficient and confident the use of knowledge, skills and the therapeutic self in
AEDP. In particular, I am impressed that Kate is skillful in privileging the new and
positive emergence the clients have from the get-go, in using body sensation,
imagery, portrayal and metaphor to help the clients access and express their
underlying feelings, unspoken voices, attachment striving, self-compassion in the
sessions. She is also confident to do the Intra-relational work with different self-
states of her clients, and competent in maintaining the experiential focus of
intervention upon emotional engagement, following through the expressive and
receptive aspects of interaction between the self, the part and the other. Besides,
Kate well illustrated her proficient in deepening and expanding the affective, somatic
and self-relational aspects of transformational experiences in the meta-therapeutic
processing and its relating work on the emergence of core state and true self in the
sessions, even though she mentioned in her reflection that she needed to learn more
how to work with the relational aspect of this part of processing. Actually, I felt
amazing and honor to witness the powerful transformational work Kate had done
with her clients and also her great efforts and attempts to make the paradigm shift
of modalities in her professional practice since learning AEDP.

Here, Kate also wants to share with us her reflection and learning in her journey of
AEDP as follows:
It has been a tremendous honor to be certified as an AEDP therapist. This journey of
learning AEDP has been nothing short of amazing and profoundly enriching. I feel
incredibly privileged to have witnessed the significant transformations of my clients,
and in turn, AEDP has transformed me both personally and professionally. I truly love
this approach; it has opened my eyes to the depths of my clients' pain and suffering
and has shown me how to be a compassionate and attuned therapist.

I am deeply grateful to my certification supervisor, Mr. Wu, for his unwavering
support, encouragement, and guidance throughout the certification process,
especially during challenging moments. I would also like to extend my heartfelt
thanks to my first teacher, Esther, who introduced me to AEDP through her
passionate teaching and inspiring demonstrations.

Additionally, I appreciate all the supervisors who have played a role in my growth in
AEDP, including Catherine, Cammy, Judy, and Bob. Last but not least, the AEDP Hong
Kong Community has been instrumental in helping us learn and grow together. I look
forward to continuing my journey, deepening my knowledge, and using the AEDP
spirit to help even more clients.

Finally, I sincerely hope that Kate as an AEDP Therapist will further consolidate what
she has experienced with us and continuously pursue her unique journey with AEDP
and with the AEDP local and global communities at large.
Thank you very much!

Regards,

Kwok-wing Wu
Registered Clinical Psychologist
Adjunct Faculty of AEDP Institute

Happy New Year to you! 

I am thrilled to celebrate with you all—Ms. Yumi Yamaguchi from Japan has officially achieved Certified AEDP Therapist status! We’re especially honored to share that Yumi is the first therapist practicing in Japan to reach this milestone.Congratulations, Yumi! 

Yumi’s certification reviewers were deeply moved by her work. They describe her clinical practice as a beautiful embodiment of the “AEDP spirit,” where she masterfully brings together affective-somatic experiencing, dyadic regulation, and metatherapeutic processing. What stands out most is how Yumi creates such profound safety in the therapeutic space—through her warmth, her explicit affirmation, and her exquisitely attuned presence.

As Yumi’s supervisors, I have had the privilege of witnessing her growth as an AEDP therapist. What moves me deeply is Yumi’s courage and perseverance in taking AEDP certification courses and supervision over the course of several years—she has navigated significant challenges including time zone differences, language barriers, and the profound work of learning AEDP across cultures. Her thoughtful exploration of how to honor both the relational depth of AEDP and the cultural values of harmony, implicit communication, and modesty in Japanese culture shows her deep integrity, academic sophistication, and commitment to this work.

Here is what her certification reviewers wrote (their words speak for themselves):

Reviewer 1:

Ms. Yumi Yamaguchi was emotionally engaging well with both her clients, demonstrating herself is comfortable with the significant therapeutic stances of AEDP, which include authenticity, affirmation, privileging positive experience and new emergence. I am impressed that Yumi was proficient in setting a regulated and attuned pacing, tone, rhythm, facial and paraverbal expression in the dyads, which contributes very much to her work on making the shift from client’s top-down mode of problem-solving into the experiential track of processing. Also, her state of relax alertness as a way of tracking and seizing different glimmers of transformance at various transformational states creates a good sense of safety and space for clients to explore not only their deep emotions but also the sense of agency of their selves. Furthermore, I see how beautiful Yumi’s work on managing the unfinished issue as approaching the end of the session, which enable the client to develop a new sense of competence in managing the unsettled fear and anxiety.

Reviewer 2:

Overall speaking, Yumi demonstrates mastery in the core, healing-oriented principles of AEDP. Her work is a beautiful embodiment of the AEDP spirit, seamlessly weaving affective-somatic experiencing, dyadic regulation, and metatherapeutic processing to facilitate profound transformation. Her exceptional work demonstrates masterful relational skills, creating profound safety through warmth, explicit affirmation, and attuned presence. Yumi exhibits remarkable clinical artistry in somatically focused interventions, skillfully guiding clients to deepen bodily awareness and process core affect within the window of tolerance. With a keen eye for “glimmers” of transformation, she facilitates powerful journeys from anxiety and fear toward resilience, integration, and a renewed, authentic sense of self. Her ability to foster dyadic regulation and mutual expansion through intersubjectivity is outstanding. Yumi’s practice beautifully exemplifies the therapeutic transition from implicit to explicit and from right brain to left brain, making her a truly skilled and compassionate AEDP clinician.

Yumi’s own words:

I was drawn to AEDP because it focuses on the healthy capacities that living beings naturally have, such as growth and homeostasis. This perspective resonated deeply with me. Since childhood, I have always loved seeing flowers growing out of cracks in concrete. When I learned that this image is used as a core concept in AEDP, I intuitively felt, “This is it.”

In the summer of 2019, I attended an immersion in New York, followed by ES1 in the winter of the same year. Throughout the training I have continued since then, I encountered many challenges. Alongside practical difficulties such as time zone differences, language barriers, and rising costs due to currency exchange, I repeatedly faced the challenge of practicing AEDP across cultural differences. Especially in relational interventions, approaches developed in Western contexts do not always translate smoothly into the Japanese cultural context. In Japan, harmony is highly valued; people are discouraged from asserting themselves, implicit communication is valued over explicit verbal expression, and modesty is considered a virtue. Even now, in moments of relational intervention, feelings of embarrassment or hesitation—such as wondering, “Would this sound strange if I said it?”—still pass through me. Finding the delicate balance of engaging the dyadic relationship while remaining within the window of tolerance is something I continue to explore.

What has allowed me to keep trusting and studying AEDP was my own experience as a client in AEDP therapy. Through this experience, I learned how powerful it is to be truly seen, and how healing it can be to feel that I am not alone. This experience changed how I relate to myself, how I engage with others, and ultimately how I live my life. That is why I hold deep gratitude for and trust in AEDP as a model. I continue this work with the wish to offer this experience to those who need it, knowing that there must be people for whom it will be deeply meaningful.

In sessions, there are moments when I recognize the seed of a client’s unique self, nurture it, and witness it bloom. These moments bring deep emotion and hope, and feel like precious gifts that arise through human connection. Being able to experience this is what brings me the greatest joy in my work. To me, AEDP feels raw and profoundly human. That is why I believe it is especially needed in today’s society. I hope to continue exploring how this work can take root and grow within Japanese culture.

—–

If you’d like to send your message directly to Yumi, here’s her email: yamaguchiyumicounseling@gmail.com

With warmth and celebration,

Yuko Hanakawa, Ph.D.

Senior Faculty, AEDP Institute

Dear AEDP Community-
I am writing with great enthusiasm to announce that Yuka Mukai is now a certified AEDP therapist!
I have had the pleasure of being Yuka’s certification supervisor and witnessing Yuka’s beautiful AEDP work. Yuka is clinically astute, intellectually curious, emotionally engaged and dedicated to providing the best care possible to her clients. Her AEDP clinical work is exemplary: she embodies the AEDP stance, utilizes moment-to-moment tracking, invites her clients to slow down and drop down, dyadically regulates, skillfully metaprocesses, and expands core state experiences.

Most of our work together focused on connecting her clinical work to a felt understanding of the AEDP model and interventions. It was thrilling to accompany Yuka as she grounded her right brain skills and experience with her left brain intellect and knowledge. As a result, her annotated transcripts were precise, insightful and thorough.At the Institute level, Yuka has also contributed as an experiential assitant in AEDP Immersions and Essential Skills courses. Most recently, Yuka was also a part of the Japan AEDP Immersion team and helped interpret the english language presentations. I look forward to seeing how her role and contribution to AEDP will continue to grow!
I am excited to share what others have said about Yuka and her work, starting with her AEDP Supervisor Kaori Straum:

“From the very beginning of our AEDP journey together, I have been deeply moved by Yuka’s honesty, passion, and the sincerity she brings to her work. This has been evident not only in her clinical work with clients, but also in her engagement in supervision and her generous support of fellow therapists as an experiential assistant. She approaches her practice with integrity and curiosity, thoughtfully integrating insights from supervision into each subsequent session. It has been truly remarkable to witness her growth.

Her ability to attune to a client’s deepest pain, to cultivate a safe relational space, and to gently facilitate embodied and relational experiences reflects her strong clinical skill. Beyond technique, her therapeutic presence has deepened over time, bringing a quiet strength and radiance to her work.

Through her dedicated role as an experiential assistant across both the U.S. and Japan, she has also made significant contributions to the broader AEDP community, especially in supporting our Japanese community. I am delighted that her tireless efforts and steadfast commitment have culminated in her recognition as a certified AEDP therapist.”

The AEDP Certfication reviewers shared the following:

Reviewer #1:“It was pleasure to review Yuka’s materials and see her gorgeous clinical work.  She demonstrates all the essentials of a skillful AEDP therapist.  Yuka embodies a kind, warm, confident transformance detective who carefully tracks the moment-to-moment process in each session and communicates what she’s tracking with grace, openness and curiosity.  Her depth of engagement combined with technical precision, gentle self-assuredness and phenomenological specificity delivers a powerful healing opportunity to each of her clients. 

Yuka seems to effortlessly embody a security engendering attachment figure—delighting in her clients, making space for their own self-discovery, speaking when helpful but readily remaining on the sidelines when not, and unafraid to to propel the process to a deeper level of healing potential with challenging and necessary requests for deepening emotion metaprocessing transformations.  Among many strengths, Yuka’s  somatic attunement and attention as well as her tenacity when metaprocessing is exceptional.  She takes the time to deepen and explore each emerging transformational experience—and there are many! ” 

Reviewer #2:“As I watched her clients and listened to Yuka’s masterful abilities to lead, then follow, then accompany and elongate her clients’ experiences in beautifully unfolding state-work, I witnessed healing in quantum yet moment-by-moment magnitude. I felt a freedom throughout my own being as the session took all three of us through cathartic state-two process, spiraling into very profound and deeper state-work and Core States. Yuka’s microanalysis allowed their Japanese language to flow from the dyad, and although I’ve never studied Japanese, I felt included in their dialogue because the work felt so crisp, with palpable healing taking hold in front of my eyes. The early client’s recognition, of her aloneness in a career that sounds stressful and difficult, was undone seamlessly. The mid-case recognitions and healing pinnacles demonstrate huge transformation. Yuka’s depth of knowledge led this person into a beautiful recognition, both through metaphorical intra-relational imaging and inter-relational truths: Emotion is not only safe, but also incredibly freeing and joyful after a life filled with fear and experience of being blocked inside. Meta-processing was offered to each of them in small ways with each of Yuka’s interventions, then in much bigger ways as gifts, and both clients’ states deepened throughout their very clean and discernible AEDP processes.”

Finally, Yuka had this to share about her own experience and process:
“My encounter with AEDP began at a one-day workshop in Tokyo at the end of 2018, led by Yuko Hanakawa.
Without her dedication to bringing AEDP to Japan, I might never have found this path. During that workshop,
I witnessed a live demonstration session in which a client, held in the therapistʼs compassionate presence,
allowed profound vulnerability to emerge before nearly a hundred people. I remember feeling something open
inside me. Quietly, I thought, “This is what I have been searching for.”

Soon after, I registered for Immersion and traveled to New York in the summer of 2019, returning again that fall
for ES1. Then the pandemic began, and the latter half of ES1 moved online. I remember wondering, Can
experiential learning truly happen through a screen? AEDP is so rooted in embodied presence and subtle
relational attunement that I was unsure whether something so experiential could survive physical distance.

What unfolded surprised me. Even across oceans and time zones, I felt deeply moved and connected. I lost count
of how many nights I stayed awake until dawn in Japan to attend online courses. It was physically demanding,
yet those long nights became meaningful. Through engaging with therapists from around the world in training
courses, I came to realize that the doubts and struggles I carried as a therapist were not uniquely mine̶they
were shared and universal. That realization became a lived experience of undoing aloneness.

Integrating AEDP into my clinical work required courage. Allowing my authentic emotional presence into the
room initially felt uncertain. Gradually, I experienced how genuine openness creates safety. Concepts I once
understood intellectually became embodied realities as I witnessed subtle shifts unfold. I learned to slow down,
notice glimmers of transformance, and trust the balance between doing and being.

Serving as an assistant in trainings deepened my sense of belonging. Over time, AEDP became not only a
therapeutic model but my clinical home. I am deeply grateful to my supervisors, Ben Medley and Kaori Stram,
who believed in my capacity from beginning to end. Their steady trust allowed me to feel truly seen. Being
believed in strengthened something within me that continues to guide my work. I am equally grateful to my
AEDP colleagues in Japan and around the world, whose shared learning and heartfelt friendship have sustained
and encouraged me, especially during moments when the journey felt long or uncertain.

Recently, the first Japanese-language Immersion was held in Japan̶a meaningful step in the growth of our
community. In a culture that deeply values harmony (“wa”), often at the expense of authentic expression, AEDP
offers a vision of harmony grounded in emotional truth and connection. As I move forward, I hope to contribute
to the continued cultivation of a compassionate, experiential AEDP community in Japan.”
Please join me in celebrating Yuka’s acheivement. You can contact her at ymukai@co-progress.jp

Congratulations, Yuka!!!
With excitement,Ben– 

Ben Medley LCSW-R