Healdsburg writer debuts first published work
Cathy Wild is a lifelong Sonoma County resident who’s been a resident of Healdsburg for the past eight years and has just released her debut book “Wild Ideas: Creativity from the Inside Out.” She currently resides off West Dry Creek road, where she’s run a successful counseling office.
The majority of her work has been focused on helping individuals deal with anxiety, fears, and any other blocks to their creativity by using a method of therapy called somatic counseling, which looks at the relationship between the mind and body in regard to psychological trauma of the past.
The use of creative outlets such as writing, dancing, or painting are an integral part of the counseling process. Her book is part guide and part memoir, using personal stories and experiences to better explain the process to individuals for whom traditional counseling methods haven’t been successful.
Wild has been counseling clients at her home, and the location is one of the things that she agrees helps clients respond to the techniques she offers, “To really experience the transformation that comes from the health and healing somatic counseling offers, the individual has to be in a safe space, a sacred space. This house is that space. Integrated through my book is the steps to that lead to the health and healing somatic counseling brings.”
Wild’s house is located at the top of a small hill overlooking redwoods, small farms, and wineries. She’s a diminutive, slender woman, whose face lights up when asked about how different aspects of her life came together to create this inaugural book, “I’m an artist, an author, and a counselor – they all come together to get to this creative space. That’s what I help my clients do … forget the proscribed methods of talk therapy to get to a place where they can get in touch with the creativity that’s been blocked up inside of them.”
Though this is her first self-published work, Wild has been advocating somatic counseling for years. She was featured on the PBS television series, In the Prime, as a creativity expert, has taught in the extended education program at Santa Rosa Junior College and was recently interviewed on KRCB-FM (PBS) radio for the “A Novel Idea” show hosted by Suzanne Lang.
“Wild Ideas: Creativity from the Inside Out” can be purchased in Healdsburg at The Russian River Tea Company, Levin & Company, the Healdsburg Center for the Arts and Copperfield’s. The book is also for sale at other Copperfield’s locations. You can learn more at cathywild.com.
