Training

Sarai (suh RYE) is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and the CEO of Coalescence Health located in Salida, Colorado, USA. She lives and works from her home offices in the Colorado Mountains and on the Pacific coast in Teacapan, Sinaloa, Mexico.

She has been a liberatory birth worker since 1996, is a mother of seven children, and a grandmother (Yaya) to many littles. Sarai is a creative and innovative human and has enjoyed pioneering EMDR into the birth work she offers by integrating EMDR therapy throughout the term of pregnancy, during the birth itself, and during postpartum periods.

She is considered an expert in the field of perinatal mental health, infant mental health, and rural community care, which are the fields in which she has been practicing as a professional counselor and consultant since 2014. All Sarai’s work is grounded in liberatory healing centered care including her clinical practice as an EMDR certified therapist. Throughout her professional career, Sarai has served the underserved, inclusive of all ages and psychological needs.

Sarai is an EMDRIA-approved consultant specializing in perinatal EMDR, offering consultation to individuals and organizations across the country and beyond, with particular expertise in birth work, postpartum care, and infant and early childhood mental health. She also specializes in offering perinatal and infant/early childhood consultation in tandem and separately from EDMR consultation. Sarai has worked as a mental health consultant since 2015 and formally completed training in this area with her graduation from a yearlong fellowship with the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 2019.

Sarai’s work as an educator and trainer formally began in 2012 working as an adjunct professor for the Women’s Studies department at Colorado State University-Pueblo. Since that time, she has offered a wide variety of professional training to mental health professionals and organizations including within community mental health, public health, school districts and university settings. As an EMDRIA-approved consultant for perinatal EMDR, Sarai also brings this same educational depth to her consultation practice, supporting clinicians who work with pregnant and postpartum clients.

Sarai has a special place in her heart for folks experiencing marginalization and oppression and has been an advocate and therapeutic support for young children, special needs populations, and domestic violence/ rape crisis center staff and consumers since 2007. This work includes the creation and organization of several events to raise awareness and resources for those experiencing marginalization, violence, and trauma including: One Billion Rising & Take Back the Night events & the now well known Rim to Rim Royal Gorge Bridge race series.

When Sarai is not out fighting systems of oppression, you can find her hiding away in her rural mountain cabin (or rural Mexico casa), soaking in hot springs, Latin dancing, and/or showering her grandchildren with love.