Author Michele Kambolis, Ph.D., seeks to offer evidenced-based healing practices to heal women’s stress and anxiety.

“If you believe there are forces that guide us in our lives, this would be one of those moments,” says Michele Kambolis, Ph.D., of the circumstances that led her to the Mind-Body Medicine Ph.D. program at Saybrook University. She had long wanted to pursue a doctoral degree but found most of the programs she was looking at fell into the traditional Western “reductionist and dualistic” model. Then one night, she says, “I woke up at one in the morning with this strong sense that there was something else that I was meant to be doing.” She noticed that a therapist whose writings she liked on social media was attending Saybrook University. Ten days later, Dr. Kambolis was beginning her studies for a Ph.D. in Mind-Body Medicine with a specialization in Integrative Mental Health. “It was exactly the right program at the right time,” she says.

Shortly after she graduated from Saybrook, Dr. Kambolis published a book titled, “When Women Rise: Everyday Practices to Strengthen Your Mind, Body and Soul,” in which she sought to contextualize the stress and anxiety women face every day. The book provides evidence-based practices that women can internalize to heal and empower themselves in every aspect of their physical, psychological, and spiritual lives.

“I feel grateful for my time at Saybrook in that it provided me with the academic and research foundations to be able to create a book that is deeply founded in science but also accessible to those who otherwise may not have been able to receive the kind of treatments that they may have needed,” Dr. Kambolis says.

Through her platform, Dr. Kambolis intends to continue her writing, research, and speaking on the opportunities everyone possesses to harmonize their lives and awaken to their wholeness through the integrative practices that are the foundations of an education at Saybrook University. On a broader scale, she travels globally to support organizations, companies, and nonprofits in their efforts to bring mind-body-health practices to their communities. “In the long term, it's important to me to be able to continue to do that outreach,” she says. “There are certain places or communities that really have very low access to this information and the treatments and practices that are so extraordinarily healing.”

Dr. Kambolis credits her experience at Saybrook, which she describes as “a humanistic university through and through” for providing the academic foundation for her work and a supportive peer group. “You feel that from the moment you begin the relationships that continue to grow long after you leave,” she says. “Whether you’re working with your peers, or learning through your professors, or diving into research, everything that you experience at Saybrook is imbued with humanism. It’s deeply heart-centered.”

Dr. Kambolis says she is proud to have raised two boys as a single mom and to have watched them learn their own life lessons. Her oldest son is pursuing a master's in counseling psychology “There’s a natural transition happening,” she says. “We need to prepare a next generation of therapists and healers who can wisely navigate the challenges of our time.”

Currently working on her third book, this one on the transformative phenomenon of post-traumatic growth, Dr. Kambolis has a message to those who are entering the field. She says, “I would want them to know that when we commit our lives towards understanding ourselves well and expanding not only our minds but our hearts, our capacity to guide others with wisdom grows exponentially. So, continue to look inward, care for yourselves, and know that this world needs the gifts that you have to offer.”

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