Stephanie Shelburne

For more than twenty-five years, my work has centered on how the body, mind, and spirit find their way back into coherence, and how that coherence supports healing. I came to this through food and the kitchen, and nutrition remains one of the most direct paths I know for supporting the nervous system and emotional regulation. Over time, that path has widened. At Saybrook I have taught courses in nutrition, spirituality and health, energy medicine, and mind-body medicine, and I see them as different doorways into the same room. I also mentor doctoral students through their research and scholarly work.

Much of my clinical and research attention has gone to trauma recovery, including trauma-rooted eating disorders. What I've learned there shapes everything I teach: healing is relational, embodied, and rarely linear. I also believe deeply in critical thinking. Integrative health is a field crowded with conflicting claims, and helping students sort what is sound from what is simply loud is one of the parts of this work I value most.

I hold doctorates in Mind-Body Medicine and Holistic Nutrition and a master's in Somatic Psychology. I serve as Biomedical Director of The New England School of Bioenergetic Medicine (NESBEM) and lead its research arm, the Institute of Applied Bioenergetic Science. Our research is grounded in Applied Coherence Empiricism, an approach that draws on William James and William Tiller and studies coherence at three scales: within the individual, between people, and across communities. NESBEM was proud to co-sponsor Nature and Health at Saybrook's Fall 2025 Residential Conference.

I created the Sacred Metabolism® framework and the Five Vital Resonance Systems, and I host the Bone Wisdom Podcast. My areas of expertise include dietary resilience, food security and sovereignty, and regenerative agriculture and living systems.

Dr. Stephanie Shelburne, PhD, NHD, MS