About us
Yvonne de Bruijn
Yvonne's original field is in social sciences, both at the Academy of Social Studies in Driebergen as well as the University of Leyden. After that she had extensive training in conflict resolution, mediation and strategies for social change through nonviolence in Philadelphia, USA.
She continued her activities in the field of Women's studies and Deep Ecology and has worked for about 15 years in all forms of nonviolent action and training.
Her interest was drawn towards body-centered psychology in the course of her work in these different fields and between 1990 -1995 she trained as a HAKOMI-therapist in Heidelberg.
Her increasing interest in different forms of Bodywork guided her further explorations in this field. She became interested in Kinesiology, trained as a Touch for Health Instructor and studied Cranio-Sacral work.
Her wish to find other approaches to healing let her into the field of Voice Work and Movement Development She completed 7 years of training in Voice Movement Integration and Body-Mind Centering. She is a certified Somatic Educator and Therapist with ISMETA, USA.
She has worked as a medical social worker, a community organizer and trainer. Between 1975-1995 she was one of the directors of Meth Medura.
In Meth Medura an important part of her work consisted of counseling political refugees.
For 27 years she held a private psychotherapy practice in the Netherlands. Since 2005 she mainly works with the human voice, both in workshops as well as individual sessions. She regularly sings for people with brain damage or other central nervous system injuries and has remarkable results doing that. She is highly interested in researching the latest developments in neuroscience and the effects of sound on the brain. She teaches her Pansori singing discoveries to different health professionals both in Germany, France and the Netherlands.
Since 2000 she is also involved in a training program to bring trauma healing skills to war-affected communities in the North and East of Sri Lanka. In 2005 this work has expanded to trauma healing work with the Tsunami-affected communities in the South of Sri Lanka.
Addy Wartena
Addy was trained as a youth leader with a special emphasis on creative drama and theater. After the second world war she worked with deprived youth and was one of the people that developed a new creative approach to work with these youth through drama.
In the course of her work she has reached people in all sectors of life and worked in psychiatric hospitals, churches, suburban parts of big cities and adult education. Her work in these fields awakened her interest in other aspects of healing and she was drawn to study the Pedagogy of Culture at the University of Amsterdam. In 1975 she founded Meth Medura. An important aspect of her work consisted of counseling political refugees, who lived in the Center from 1983-1995.
She was intrigued by the impact of traumatic events on the body and decided to explore different bodywork approaches. She trained as a Haptonomy-therapist, a Touch for Health Instructor and Cranio-Sacral worker. Her wish for an integrated approach let her to study Voice Movement Integration and Body-Mind Centering for 7 years.
She is a Certified Somatic Educator and Therapist with ISMETA, USA.
Since 2000 she is involved in a training program to bring trauma healing skills to war-affected communities in the North and East of Sri Lanka.
The last ten years she studied a special Indian myth, the poem Savitri. This myth tells about the spiritual journey of King Aswapathi and the incredible story of the goddess Savitri, who came to conquer Death.
Savitri is not only a legend and a symbol, but a living story about human life.
In different workshops she introduces Savitri as an underlying story to clarify the deep impact of singing.
