Bio

Laura van Dernoot Lipsky has worked directly with trauma survivors for over two decades. At age 18, she regularly spent nights volunteering in a homeless shelter. From there, she went on to work with survivors of child abuse, domestic violence, acute trauma, and natural disasters. Simultaneously, she has been active in community organizing and movements for social and environmental justice and has taught on issues surrounding systematic oppression and liberation theory.

Like so many of her colleagues, Laura initially engaged in her work with great passion and commitment, and with a sense that it was a privilege to serve others. But over time, the worked changed her, until she was no longer the person she had once been. She felt a rising despair about the brutality of the world and anger at those who had helped to create the conditions of trauma and suffering of humans, animals, and our planet. About 10 years ago, she finally faced an uncomfortable reality: The work she cared so much about was taking a toll on her. Her work had compromised her ability to be present in her life, enjoy her relationships, and even be an effective social worker and educator.

Feeling that she could no longer work with integrity, she began the second stage of her involvement with trauma. In 2000, she quit her job as an emergency room social worker at Harborview Hospital in Seattle, Washington, and began an urgent quest for wisdom that would allow her to preserve her trust in life and its beauty even when doing work that guaranteed exposure to endless waves of pain. Her explorations took her from Buddhist monks and nuns to qigong healers to Native American medicine men and women to the latest scientific research on the effects of prolonged exposure to others’ trauma. Laura’s hunger to embrace both the joy and the sorrow of our life experiences is at the root of her concept of trauma stewardship.

Laura offered her first version of a workshop on trauma stewardship to a group of public health workers in 1999. Since then, she has trained a wide variety of people, including zookeepers and reconstruction workers in post-Katrina New Orleans, community organizers and health care providers in Japan, U.S. Air Force pilots, Canadian firefighters, public school teachers, and private practice doctors. She has worked locally, nationally, and internationally.

Recently, Laura turned her attention to the effects of trauma exposure on those doing frontline work in environmental and conservation movements throughout the world. She was among the first to talk publicly about the profound price that the witnessing of mass extinctions and other potentially irreversible ecological losses caused by global warming and other forms of human encroachment is exacting from the organizations and individuals who are attempting to save our planet.

In addition to traveling near and far as part of her dedication to support others in practicing trauma stewardship, Laura continues to consult with organizations and institutions while also maintaining a counseling practice. She volunteers in the public schools and is the founder and director of Prescolar Alice Francis, a Spanish-language preschool that is guided by a curriculum in social and environmental justice. Conducted entirely in Spanish, it is the only one of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. Laura lives in Seattle, Washington, with her family; holds a master of social work degree; is bilingual in Spanish; and in 2008 was given a Yo! Mama award in recognition of her work as a community-activist mother.