Ama Smutlats Therapeutic Support Circle (Monthly Meeting)
Indigenous Woman in Leadership Support Circle (Sunday evenings)
Course Summary
Therapeutic Circle for Indigenous Women Leaders
This confidential group is for Indigenous women leaders who are deeply committed to their communities but often overwork, over-give, and neglect their own care.
Rooted in Indigenous social work values and trauma therapy, this circle blends Somatic Experiencing (SE), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Indigenous cultural ways to support stress reduction, emotional healing, and nervous system regulation.
It’s a space to be nourished, witnessed, and held — for leaders ready to tend to themselves as much as they tend to others.
Facilitated by a registered Indigenous therapist (MSW,RSW). Eligible for coverage under most extended health insurance plans.
Course Curriculum
Alanah Woodland
Alanah Woodland BSc, MSc, MSW (she/her)
Holistic, Integrative, Culturally Inclusive, Trauma-Trained Therapist and Facilitator/Consultant, Artist, Helper, Listener, Intuitive, Storykeeper
Ámham Therapy (Ucwalmicwts: to make something better) is Alanah’s business. Ámham offers culturally inclusive, and anti-oppressive counseling, consulting, and facilitation, incorporating creativity, body, and land-based modalities from an understanding and training in trauma and resilience. Alanah meets clients where they are, inviting curiosity and courage to look at the place or space they want to grow, understand or heal. She keeps an eye to look and help identify and work with the strengths within individuals, families and organizations.
Alanah is an Indigenous (St'at'yemc/Nlaka'pamux) registered social worker-psychotherapist who works online in two provinces (British Columbia, and Ontario) and in-person in her workspace in Lillooet, British Columbia, or the gorgeous green spaces nearby.
This flexibility with meeting spaces is one of the ways Alanah incorporates land-based modalities helping people on their healing journey. She walks beside clients on their healing journey finding ways to support oppressed and excluded people to find and receive what they need, creating a better wellness environment for her clients.
Alanah’s business utilizes Indigenous ways of engaging, which positively disrupts the current prevailing business environment created and structured by Colonialism. The way of being and work includes facilitating training for organizations, especially those in the community service or education fields, helping them to understand the impacts of trauma using Indigenous lens and stories that link traditional teachings and western psychotherapy.
Alanah holds a BSc, an MSc, and an MSW. Alanah’s first Master degree was in Community Health Sciences and Population Health sciences. Later she retuned to another Master degree focused on Indigenous trauma and resiliency, the combination allows Alanah to move from the individual experiences to the macroscopic, wide lens required to weave the bigger picture of how things like “income, different social statuses, history, and gender come into play, whether you’re Indigenous or not.” Her initial work in community health laid the groundwork for her enjoyment and creative integrative approach to facilitation and training.
The foundation of Alanah’s approach is built upon the cultural and spiritual work she’s done with her elders which has guided incorporating the land and water and spirit ;there is a cultural vein that runs through everything Alanah does in her business. She augments this foundation with expressive play, somatic body work , Indigenous focusing oriented therapy, land-based therapy and humour to help bring lightness and fluidity into the work of healing.
Alanah’s approach is best described through water, joining the flow within each client’s river of life, meeting them where they are and helping them navigate the often turbulent waters, with upstream impacts that can last for generations.
