Embodied Compassionate Healing
Meet Ana Carolina Loia, SEP
Hi, I’m Ana Carolina, and I am so glad you’re here. I’m a trained somatic therapist with a background in multiple body-oriented, trauma-informed therapeutical modalities that support the integration of body and mind in the healing of trauma and other challenges.
In my integrative approach, I weave my trainings in working with nervous system dysregulation (psychobiological methods) with parts work & inner child healing, attachment repair and regulation-focused touch.
Yet, the best training has come through my own healing journey. For years, I searched for healing in other approaches but they failed to address the root causes of what I was experiencing and did not offer the deeper healing I was seeking. It wasn’t until I found the body-centered, attachment-based, and trauma-informed therapies that I experienced the profound shift I was longing for.
It’s by having walked this path myself that I am able to meet my clients just where they are — with a deep understanding of what it means to feel stuck and the profound hope that healing is possible. It’s my personal journey that has shaped my ability to hold space for others with compassion, presence and an open heart.
I see you, I hear you, and I believe you. I honor your courage in taking this step.
At the heart of my practice
Compassion
I believe that compassion is the essence of healing. Compassion for the parts of us that are hurt, and for the ways we managed to adapt, to cope and to protect in order to survive. When we’re able to meet ourselves with kindness, acceptance, non-judgement and openness, we create the conditions for healing and transformation.
Presence
My goal is to offer a safe space where you can be met with presence and empathy, where you can feel seen and heard, where you can be witnessed - in your pain and in your power. I will guide you into being more present and open to your own internal experiences, and consequently, to life.
Curiosity
It is with curiosity - when we’re open to explore and receive experiences without judgement and with an open heart - that we create space for growth and healing. It’s from a place of curiosity that we allow our experiences to come to the surface so that we may process and integrate them.
Courage
Healing takes courage. Courage to be with our truth, to be with uncomfortable experiences, to do things differently and to keep showing up to ourselves. I am here to offer support and hope in your journey.
My training and background is in
Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP)
Somatic Experiencing ® is a psychobiological modality that aims to resolve symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma that accumulate in our bodies and nervous systems. From the SE lens, trauma in not in the event, it’s the imprint on what happened that stays stuck in the nervous system and how this dysregulation impacts life.
Psychotraumatology
Psychotraumatology is an approach that integrates research from contemporary neuroscience with interventions from various schools of Somatic Psychology. It offers tools, resources and interventions to address the complexities of trauma and it’s manifestations in our physical and emotional beings.
IFS (Internal Family Systems) - IFS Circle, IFS Continuing Education
IFS is a transformative, non-pathologizing therapeutical approach that helps people heal by accessing and healing their protective and wounded inner parts. At the core of IFS is the belief that every individual has a core Self, which is inherently calm, compassionate, and wise. The Self is the true essence of who we are, and it is from this place that healing and transformation can occur.
Transforming the Experience-Based Brain (TEB) - Transforming Touch® - in progress (2025)
TEB is a regulation-focused approach that focuses on the repair and healing of developmental trauma (trauma experienced in utero and as a child). It is based on the idea that when there are ruptures during early development, they continue to disrupt a person's life. TEB incorporates presence, regulation, and relationship to repair these ruptures.
At the core of TEB is Transforming Touch® which is an effective, scientific-based way of encouraging and supporting regulation of the autonomic nervous system using physical or intentional touch.
DARe 1–Dynamic Attachment Repatterning Experience
DARe is a dynamic and compassionate framework that supports our ability to resolve relational trauma, strengthen secure attachment, break unhealthy patterns, repair and restore our innate capacity to heal, reconnect and thrive in relationships (to ourselves and others).
Other courses and trainings
Trauma Coupling Dynamics - Kathy Kain, PhD
Integral Somatic Psychology: Trauma, Development, and Attachment - Dr. Raja Selvam
Trauma Solutions, Working with Complex Trauma - Dr. Diane Poole Heller and Dr. Peter Levine
Professional Association
I am a registered member of the A.N.Q. (Association of Naturopaths of Quebec) and adhere to a Code of Ethics in my practice.