About us

Authenticity Associates was founded by Hilary Stokes, PhD and Kim Ward, PhD, both of whom have walked their own paths of trauma recovery and personal transformation. Their lived experiences with anxiety, PTSD, addiction, and self-sabotaging patterns led them to explore healing approaches that extend beyond traditional talk therapy. The two met in the early 1990s while working in organizations devoted to transformational healing. What began as a shared passion for personal growth and integrative wellness evolved into a lasting partnership.

• Brainspotting
• EMDR (Attachment‑focused)
• Somatic Therapy
• Mindfulness & Meditation
• Breathwork
• Biofeedback

• Psychedelic Therapy Preparation & Integration
• Hypnosis
• Energy Psychology
• Enneagram coaching
• NLP, Reiki, breathwork, and more 

Authenticity Associates was founded by Hilary Stokes, PhD and Kim Ward, PhD, both of whom have walked their own paths of trauma recovery and personal transformation. Their lived experiences with anxiety, PTSD, addiction, and self-sabotaging patterns led them to explore healing approaches that extend beyond traditional talk therapy. The two met in the early 1990s while working in organizations devoted to transformational healing. What began as a shared passion for personal growth and integrative wellness evolved into a lasting partnership.

• Trauma - PTSD, developmental trauma and complex trauma
• Anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, performance anxiety
• Depression, grief and loss
• Unhealthy habits, addiction, and self‑sabotage

• Chronic pain
• Low self‑esteem and issues with self-confidence
• Emotional regulation and reactivity issues
• Relational challenges 

Trauma can leave us feeling disconnected from our bodies, our emotions, and the people around us. It fragments our sense of self, disrupts relationships, and keeps us stuck in patterns of hypervigilance, anxiety, avoidance and survival. Through holistic, body-centered therapy, we help you begin to reconnect first with your body and nervous system, then with your inner wisdom, and ultimately with your authentic self. This healing unfolds in a space of mindful attunement, where you feel deeply seen, supported, and safe enough to move beyond survival and into presence. 

If you’ve felt stuck or reached a plateau in your healing journey, it may be because you've focused primarily on analyzing your experiences. This is known as a ‘top-down’ approach that engages the thinking mind but attempts to bypass the body. Similarly, trying to override old habits or emotional patterns through willpower alone often falls short. True healing happens when we engage the mind and body to release what’s been held inside and create space for lasting change.

At Authenticity Associates, we integrate brain-based and body-centered therapies that support nervous system regulation, emotional processing, and embodied awareness. These approaches gently reach the root of unresolved pain, helping to release what’s been stuck and build new neural pathways for resilience, connection, and authentic living.

At Authenticity Associates, we integrate brain-based and body-centered therapies that support nervous system regulation, emotional processing, and embodied awareness. These approaches gently reach the root of unresolved pain, helping to release what’s been stuck and build new neural pathways for resilience, connection, and authentic living.

We met in the early 90’s while working with an organization committed to healing, transformation and global consciousness. We felt like kindred spirits finding each other again as seekers on the path with a deep calling for authentic healing. We have been partners in work and life ever since. We come from a personal understanding of overcoming life trauma and vulnerabilities including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, eating disorders and purposelessness. We had run the gamut of attempting to heal through traditional approaches that were not truly effective. At the time we were in graduate school for psychology and felt disillusioned with the process of true healing. We had each spent years in talk therapy to heal past trauma yet were still struggling with unhealthy patterns and symptoms.

This set us on a quest to discover alternative strategies for healing. We sought out the best of mind body therapies. Together we have training and certifications in over 25 holistic modalities including biofeedback, meditation, EMDR, brainspotting, breathwork, the Enneagram Personality System, neuro-linguistic programming, Tibetan Buddhism psychology, hypnosis, EFT, energy psychology, coaching, reiki and visualization.

In 1998 we were honored to be part of a small team of health experts contracted to design and develop Sanoviv Medical Institute. In addition to contributing to the overall vision of Sanoviv, we developed and managed the psychology, spirituality and fitness programs for just under 10 years. Sanoviv Medical Institute, is a one-of-a-kind integrative hospital that blends state of the art 21st century medicine with a luxurious healing atmosphere. It was the first fully licensed functional medicine hospital in the world specializing in the prevention and treatment of health challenges at the level of the root cause vs. symptom management. We gained priceless insight and practical experience in integrative health. We witnessed firsthand the importance of integrating mind, body and spirit for attaining health and happiness.