As a young child, I recognized a stream running through everything. This stream was a peaceful place that held me, even through times of trauma, fear, and loneliness. Some people might call it nature, God, soul, universal consciousness, or even spirit. Whatever the name, it is our connection to this place that provides deep healing and a sense of well being in our lives. It was my early experience of this stream that led me on a life-long quest to better understand it, deepen my connection to it, and to help others deepen their connection to it.
My childhood was a time of turbulence and change. Before I turned twelve, I had lived in 5 countries. My exposure to vastly different cultures at such a young age greatly informed my understanding of the world, and the transience of arbitrary cultural structures. By the age of eighteen, I spoke five languages.
By this time, I had begun trying to deepen my understanding of the stream by exploring language structures, religion, cultural anthropology, and art. As I studied pottery pit firing techniques with teachers from several different ceramic traditions, I was drawn into the practices of shamanism held in their cultures. This began a long study of shamanism with teachers holding many different perspectives on the nature of healing.
After earning a degree in cultural and linguistic anthropology from Bucknell University, and a Certificat d’Etude in comparative religion from the Institut Catholique de Paris, I discovered Buddhism. I began what has now been over thirty years of study and daily meditative practice in both Tibetan and Zen Buddhism.
The Buddhist teachings on suffering and the shamanic solutions to suffering greatly informed my understanding of the nature of reality. As I learned more, I began to investigate ways of bringing these perspectives into a context that could be understood by westerners. This quest led me to the study of hypnotherapy and transpersonal psychology.
In the 1980’s I raised two children and ran two successful companies (an herbal products company and a language translation business). In the early 1990’s, still called by my early desire to understand the stream, I earned my Ph.D., became a certified hypnotherapist and started a private practice in hypnotherapy.
The more my practice grew, the more I learned about the nature of suffering. I began to realize that suffering is generated through unconscious personal interaction, acculturation, religious indoctrination, and participation in systems that empower one individual at the expense of another. Repeatedly, I saw examples of how these activities cause one to twist away from his or her natural state, creating great suffering.
I also began to realize that the only way to rise out of this suffering is to recognize the ways in which we have twisted away from the stream, our natural way of being, and to reconnect with it. My search for ways to help people connect to this natural way of being ultimately led me to develop the therapeutic model called Depth Hypnosis.
The simple concept behind Depth Hypnosis is that healing occurs when a person discovers what it is that takes them away from their true nature. By combining Buddhism, hypnotherapy, shamanism, energy medicine, and transpersonal psychology, Depth Hypnosis provides ways of understanding the nature of suffering - and it offers practical and dynamic methods for relieving it. Essentially, it is a path back to the stream.
As my therapy practice grew beyond capacity, I quickly realized that I was limited in terms of the number of people that I could personally help as a practitioner. It was clear that in order to help as many people as possible, I would need to begin teaching the methods of Depth Hypnosis to other counselors and helping professionals. This desire to share these methods and information led me to form a non-profit organization called The Foundation of the Sacred Stream.
I am so fortunate to participate in the community that is being generated by this Foundation. So many amazing people have contributed to its development, and continue to help hold the vision as we move forward into the future. As an organization, we are committed to sharing information and helping people create their own unique paths to wholeness on every level - spiritual, physical, emotional, and at the level of the psyche.
We are excited to teach what we know about Depth Hypnosis, shamanism, Buddhism and energy medicine, as well as to provide a place for teachers, healers, spiritual leaders, and artists to share their knowledge and their work. It is my sincerest hope that we will continue to help people discover the pathways to deeper healing, and to help them forge stronger connections to themselves, their loved ones, and the world.
Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
Founding Director