In this episode, I sit down with the somatic psychotherapist, writer, and teacher Ailey Jolie to explore the evolving intersection of trauma, embodiment, and technology.
Ailey shares her journey from eating disorder recovery to psychedelic-assisted research to writing, and her commitment to bringing body-based wisdom into mainstream psychology. She reflects on leaving modeling and medicine after listening to an unmistakable inner “no,” watching her mother make a life-defining decision guided by intuition, and how those early experiences shaped her trust in the body’s voice.
Ailey’s credentials are impeccable. She holds a Master of Counseling Psychology, a Master of Arts in Depth Psychology with an Emphasis in Somatic Studies, and is a graduate of Harvard Medical School’s Global Mental Health: Trauma Recovery Masters certificate program. She’s a certified Focusing Oriented Therapist (FOT), Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner (CI), Certified Internal Family Systems Therapist (C-IFS), and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP). Furthermore, she has trained to deliver MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD (MAPS USA) and Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy in a research setting. She brings this wide range of experience to her Substack newsletter Words From This Body.
In exploring AI as a kind of “spiritual technologist,” Ailey speaks candidly about her shifting relationship with screens, nervous system regulation, and the need to titrate between in-person depth and digital reach. Together, we discuss dorsal vagal “rest,” the somatic cost of not being believed, why trauma lives differently in female bodies, and the generational work of translating mind-body science — especially through a feminist lens — into something more accessible, embodied, and alive.
Links
In this Body, Ailey's podcast that explores the hidden impact of the unconscious
In Body Method, Ailey's 14-week guided journey
Words From This Body, Ailey's Substack newsletter
