Kathy Southard

Clinical Social Worker/Therapist, MSW, LCSW

I am an LCSW and psychotherapist with I more than 24 years of experience as a clinical social worker in medical and psychiatric settings, including as a former VA trauma therapist and a former member of a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital’s psychiatry department.

I have been a practitioner of meditation and mindfulness since 2000, connected to Shambhala. (www.shambhala.org). Within that path, I have been an Assistant Teacher for a month long meditation retreat (called dathun), lived in Pema Chodron’s monastery in Nova Scotia for a year (called Gampo Abbey), and have been a qualified meditation instructor since 2010 by Shambhala International. While working at the Cambridge Health Alliance in 2017, I was included as Harvard Medical School faculty for a course in Psychotherapy and Meditation.

Apart from my meditation background, I am a MAPS trainee therapist (www.maps.org) and currently working on certifcation in Hakomi method (https://hakomiinstitute.com/about/what-is-hakomi/) , a somatic mindfulness based psychotherapy that is both eastern and western based. I have trained in MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) at Bangor University in 2010 and MCBT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) at Harvard University’s Center of Mindfulness and Compassion with Susan Woods, LICSW in 2016. I might have lots of certificates and credentials, but I know it’s not that that makes a good therapist. It’s the quality of the therapuetic relationship.

  • Years in Practice: 21 Years

    License: Hawaii / LCSW-4271

    School: Boston University

    Year Graduated: 2002

    Member: Legislative Action Committee of the Hawaii Psychological Association

    Advisory Board Member: The Clarity Project Hawaii

  • Institute of Group Analysis (London, United Kingdom, 2011)

    Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Boston University, 2016)

    EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Training with Roy Kiessling (2018)

    Masters in Social Work (Boston University, 2002)

    Psychedelic Assisted Therapies (Naropa University, 2022)

    Ketamine Assisted Therapy (PRATI, the Psychedelic Research and Training Institute, 2022)

    MAPS Trainee Therapist

  • In my 21 years of experience as a clinical social worker, I've worked in psychiatry with the following organizations:

    The Cambridge Hospital of the Cambridge Health Alliance, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital from 2003 until 2005 and also from 2015-2017.

    Additionally, I worked as a psychiatric social worker for the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, at the oldest Psychiatric Hospital in the world, the Bethlem Royal Hospital in the UK.

    Prior to opening my own practice, I worked as a social worker at the Queens Medical Center.

    My background also includes deep training in mindfulness methods.

  • I first became interested in the use of psychedelics in Psychiatry while working with Harvard psychiatrists back in 2015 when I attended the conference at Harvard organized by a colleague of mine, in which Rick Doblin, the head of MAPS was invited as a keynote speaker.

    Since then I've become a MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies) trainee therapist and hopefully in the future, as these technologies become legal, I will be one of the first therapists able to use these medicines in the work I do, supporting people to heal from PTSD, depression, and anxiety.

    I have over 20 years of experience as a clinical social worker in psychiatry and seeing the new developments that are transforming psychiatry, I know they are transformative and lead to lasting healing that traditional SSRIs just are not able to accomplish.

    Many research institutions at this time are publishing scientific evidence of the efficacy and benefits of psychedelic medicine on the brain and body. The FDA calls Psychedelic Psilocybin a "Breakthrough Therapy" for severe depression. Many institutions including Johns Hopkins, Yale, Harvard, and NYU are publishing much research demonstrating the efficacy of these psychedelic medicines to treat depression, anxiety, and PTSD.

  • I have completed countless meditation retreats, many solitary meditation retreats, and volunteered my time organizing and assisting in countless meditation retreats.

    I have lived at Gampo Abbey and I am inspired by the teachings of Pema Chodron, who I count as one of my main teachers.

    Additionally, I was the HR manager for Dechen Chöling, a Shambhala Meditation Center, located in France.

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