Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Activist poet, psychoanalyst, cantadora (keeper of the old stories), Dr. Estés has practiced clinically as a post-trauma specialist since 1970. She served teachers and children after the massacre at Columbine High School and the survivor families of the 9/11 tragedy. She is an Associate with the Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kans. Her teaching “spirit in healing” to young doctors at a Catholic hospital coincides with board appointment at Maya Angelou Minority Health Foundation, Wake Forest University Medical School. A former welfare mother, she testifies before state and federal legislatures on issues of mercy. Of Mestizo-Mexican heritage, adopted by immigrant Hungarians as an older child, Dr. Estés is a visiting diversity lecturer at universities and a Founder of La Sociedad de Guadalupe for adult literacy. As a grandmother from the Rocky Mountains and a disciple of nature, Dr. Estés holds that the largest endangered species on earth is the human soul.