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