Bio
Heather Freeman, PsyD, RYT 500, received her PsyD in Clinical Psychology from Pacific University in 2019. She obtained her 200-hour yoga teaching certification at the Asheville Yoga Center in Asheville, NC in 2014, and her 300-hour yoga teaching certification at the DAYA Foundation in Portland, OR. She previously earned a Master's in Counseling Psychology from Loyola University in Baltimore, MD and is currently working towards becoming a licensed psychologist.
Dr. Freeman continues to align her professional interest in psychology with the ancient wisdom and teachings of yoga. She considers herself a gestalt therapist, and views each person as inherently adaptable, resilient and existing within a variety of intertwined contexts. She combines yoga psychology with Gestalt therapy to create a holistic view of the person that draws on and connects mind, body, and spirit. Yoga, like Gestalt, encourages experiential learning in the here-and-now moment to develop and strengthen awareness and innate resources. Her clinical work has involved working with children in a psychiatry hospital, adolescents and college aged students in college counseling centers, as well as working within primary care and community mental health clinics. She has taught yoga to many different populations including graduate students, adults and children receiving mental health services, older adults with chronic health diagnoses, adults in custody and police officers.
Dr. Freeman’s research has specifically targeted identifying the perception of yoga and illuminating the diverse use of yoga philosophy as an entire system. Her dissertation is a program evaluation on the effects of a yoga teacher training program in a prison, evaluating the effects of training adults in custody to build a personal yoga practice and how to teach yoga to other adults in custody. She is passionate about expanding yoga's accessibility through program development, research and clinical work.
