ZOYA KRIOKOVA, PhD
The focus of both my private healing practice and my research as a PhD is the process of healing transformation of the psyche by changing old unconscious behavioral and generational patterns.
I fled the Soviet Union in 1992 during its violent break-up and came to California with my then husband and two-year-old son. It was years before I came to realize how profoundly wars and violence had shaped my beliefs and my relationships; not only the war of my own generation, but that of my parents and grandparents. Eventually, through studying various spiritual and healing traditions, especially Qi Gong, Shiatsu, Cranio-Sacral and Visceral Manipulation, I became fascinated by the emotional information that arose from the unconscious into the conscious during deep bodywork.
In my own life, my spiritual/healing journey has had a profound impact on my healing practice. My personal experience and discoveries through the healing of my own trauma and that of my clients during bodywork, led me to pursue my Ph.D. in Somatic Psychology. This education, alongside my earlier experiences, has given me the understanding of how to reprogram old traumatic memories through the body within the therapeutic relationship. In this chapter of my life I am focusing on developing a program to teach my accumulated knowledge to the next generation of therapists.