Kathleen Barry Ingram

About Kathleen Barry Ingram, M.A.

Kathleen is a Tucson-based life coach, consultant, lecturer and educator specializing in assisting individuals in personal/professional growth and Equine-Facilitated Experiential Learning. Kathleen is dedicated to helping individuals and groups move beyond limiting patterns of thought and behavior, assisting them in the discovery of possibilities to resolve conflict, develop competency, and find peace.

Kathleen brings over 30 years of experience in the counseling field, non-profit services, and marketing and communications in the health care industry to her work as a coach and consultant to individuals, families and businesses. She is past executive director of San Juan United Way, corporate director of marketing and intake at Sierra Tucson Treatment Center, www.sierratucson.com  and has been a board member of several non-profit health care agencies. She did her internship for her masters in counseling with Lesley College www.lesley.edu  at Four Corners Mental Health Clinic in New Mexico where she worked with a wide range of cultures and specialized in nonverbal communication with the Native population. The diversity and variety of populations Kathleen has mentored and facilitated gives her the experience and knowledge to work with people and groups both personally and professionally.

She had a private practice in Albuquerque in the early 1980’s before moving to Tucson to work at Sierra Tucson, a leader in addiction treatment programs. She began her private counseling practice in 1992 in Tucson where she specialized in addiction counseling with an emphasis on eating disorders; grief and loss recovery; conflict resolution; and family interventions for addictive behaviors. She also completed 50 hours of post-graduate study in 1995 with the Pathfinder Foundation and Paul Rosenberg, MD and is certified in the psychodynamic fundamentals of effective short term psychotherapy.

Kathleen was introduced to Equine Facilitated Learning when Barbara Rector, Adventures in Awareness, www.adventuresinawareness.net  brought horses to work with the adolescents at Sierra Tucson in the early 1990’s. Barbara hired Kathleen as a consultant to work with her colleagues, equine and human, in her program with Anne Alden, past president of the Equine Facilitated Mental Health Association. Through her association with Barbara and Anne, Kathleen met Linda Kohanov. Kathleen and Linda began working together by creating workshops and individual intensives in 1998 where they incorporated their talents and expertise to develop an innovative and creative healing modality employing the horses as equal partners. In 2003, the first Epona Equestrian Services apprenticeship class graduated. Kathleen and Linda co-created, developed, and taught the apprenticeship program together until 2007 when the ninth class graduated and another group of talented and experienced individuals began their own equine facilitated learning practices. You can find out more about all of the qualified instructors at www.taoofequus.com  where the instructors are listed in their geographic areas worldwide.

Kathleen continues to teach and train others in equine facilitated learning in the United States and Internationally.  The Equine Facilitated Learning training programs she currently teaches in are:  www.ifeal.com in the UK; www.horsespiritconnections.com  in Toronto, Canada;  and www.equinealchemy.com in New York state.  The horses, as equal partners, assist the facilitator by modeling congruent messages and behavior, co-creative and consensual leadership, appropriate boundaries, experiencing emotional messages as information, and teaching and educating their human students to live consciously in the present moment. The horses have been among her greatest teachers, and even when she is not working with them directly, she carries them in her heart. These amazing beings constantly guide and teach her and she feels blessed to count them as her friends and companions.

Her logo, a swan and eagle, symbolizes the yin/yang relationship and the internal balance needed for individuals to develop and maintain their inner feminine and masculine qualities to create the whole. Each of us possesses the grace, creativity, and vulnerability of the swan along with the strength, courage, and determination of the eagle. This integration of the yin/yang is needed for us to be fully alive and contributing to this paradigm shift by building what Eckart Tolle describes in his book The New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. www.eckarttolle.com

Among her well-received workshops across the country, she has been a featured presenter at Tucson’s highly regarded Miraval resort www.miravalresort.com ; Paradigm Shifters Radio Show with Veronica Entwistle www.paradigmshiftersradioshow.com  and the Equine Facilitated Mental Health Association’s preconference workshop at the 2003 North American Riding for the Handicapped Association [NARHA] conference www.narha.org . She served as an academic advisor for Prescott College www.prescott.edu assisting students working towards their Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology.

Kathleen has followed what Robert Johnson calls the slender threads. In his book, Balancing Heaven and Earth, he describes this intuitive direction as:

…being in a particular place at just the right time, meeting someone who steers you in an unforeseen direction, the unexpected appearance of work or money or inspiration just when they are most needed. These are the mysterious forces that guide us and shape who we are. They are the patterns that give meaning to our experiences……We all have free will, and therefore we can try to force situations in life. Perhaps the struggle is what keeps us bound to this earth. But I have gradually learned to accept that the slender threads possess greater intelligence and wisdom than our scrambling egos can ever attain. In good times and in bad, one slender thread after another has seen me through and, together, they have shaped what I know and who I am…. (Prologue: “Slender Threads- Robert Johnson, January 6, 1997 Encinitas, California)

Kathleen would like to assist and guide you in discovering and following your own slender threads to meet your destiny.