Katrina Rachuy, L.ac
Katrina Rachuy, L.ac is a multi passionate creative healer. She has completed deep study of Internal Family Systems, the Neuro-affective Relational Model (NARM), and she holds a four year graduate degree in East Asian medicine. She is an always learning expert on complex trauma, the human nervous system and many disciplines of alternative spirituality including animism, yoga philosophy and astrology.
My Context as an Internal Family Systems Coach
I am a white ciswoman living in Saint Paul, Minnesota (Mni Sota Makoce), a city in an area known by the Dakota as Imnizaska. This is the traditional land of Dakota and Anishinaabeg people, who are still here and the true caretakers of this place. I have immense gratitude for this land. I see myself as belonging to this place, I practice the daily habit of speaking to the spirits of the land.
This place, like all other parts of the so-called united states-a political project imposed on a large portion of the land known as Turtle Island- was taken forcibly from the indigenous people who tended the land for millennia before white European colonists invaded. I hold a lot of privilege in the current dominant culture, which has resulted from the violent colonial history of this country. I am therefore committed to dismantling this violent and racist dominant culture as much as I can within this lifetime.
My efforts are focused on dismantling white-body supremacy culture as it lives within me as well as supporting others who are doing this work. I commit to showing up to conversations of constructive critique with openness and resilience.
Credentials
Internal Family Systems Online Circle Training
NARM Basics training (Neuro Affective Relational Model)
5 levels craniosacral therapy-dynamic body balancing
Yoga teacher-200 RYT
Master’s in Acupuncture and East Asian Medicine-Oregon College of Oriental Medicine
Licensed acupuncturist MN medical board
The Short Version
I am a multi-passionate creative healer. I am a witch, I view the world through an animist lens (animism: all “things” are alive with spirit). I have been a licensed acupuncturist since the autumn of 2015. I have been weaving somatic coaching into my healing practice since 2017 and began formally naming this as a separate service in 2022 when I founded Patchwork Healing.
The Long Version
I do not speak of the threads that have created me and my work with the word “lineage.” Lineage is a lie that leaves out the mothers. We come from webs and root balls and we are root ball beings ourselves. This page is my attempt to describe the most significant experiences that formed me and led me to create Patchwork Healing as my life’s vocation- without drowning you in information.
I start with the most recent experiences and work my way back-feel free to read as much or as little as you like. If formal education and pedigree are important to you, scroll down to the years 2011-2015 in which I earned my Master’s degree. I include continuing education along with personal life experiences because I cannot separate the transformations that took place in one over the other.
Masters program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling through Antioch University New England (AUNE) Fall 2024-current- As my work turns more and more toward the psychological, spiritual and somatic I am supporting this with formal study at the graduate level of professional counseling. AUNE is rooted in social justice, these studies support me in my work of personal and collective liberation.
Internal Family Systems Online Circle Spring 2024-6 month online course which has gifted me the structure of Internal Family Systems for my coaching sessions. This framework speaks to my heart and makes perfect intuitive sense to me.
Sacred Songs and Spirit Singing (6 week courses taken Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Summer 2024 and Autumn 2024) Led by the incredible Emily Colay I lead ritual and spirits love it when we sing and play percussive instruments for them. I have no musical talent but here I explore and build my relationship with the drum I built, Wanda. This honors my ongoing commitment to working with spirit in community ritual. If you attend a community ritual offering of mine I ask for your patience with my unrefined playing and singing. 💗
2024 January: Ancestral Collaborations with Perdita Finn. Speaking with the dead, asking for help from the dead, recognizing myself held in a supportive web of the dead.
2024 Ongoing work with mentor and healer Christine Lord (LICSW). I began work with Christine late in 2023 after ending a relationship with another practitioner I had worked with from late 2020-summer 2023. Christine holds me in a wide web of support for my ongoing post traumatic growth (because I need that too!). She also holds me accountable by helping me refine my definition of integrity as pertains to how I work with material that normally might be relegated to a traditional therapy setting.
Transforming your Dragons with Jaime Meyer
Prayer Class with Jaime Meyer
Pluto Work with Hummingbird of Astrology for the Revolution. Summer 2021 We dug deep into my astrological chart which initiated me into ongoing work with the stars. I now have intimate knowledge of my birth chart and draw guidance from the current transits.
NARM (Neuro-Affective Relational Model) Basics training. Spring 2021 A framework for working with clients who hold complex trauma history. I use the four pillars of NARM to structure my work:
1) Clarifying the therapeutic contract
2) Asking exploratory questions
3) Reinforcing Agency
4) reflecting psycho-biological shifts
2016-2020: Full time practice as an Acupuncturist in a small town in Minnesota. Informally incorporated somatic coaching because I found myself plumbing the depths and exploring the deeper issues with my clients. This was also a deeply painful experience as I was a practicing witch/healer in a small town dominated by misogynistic and patriarchal versions of christianity. To be an outsider is to remember earlier lives when I was hunted for who I was. I carry the witch wound and this time clarified for me that I must live in a city in order to be in the company of others who are able to speak freely of the witch wound and practice being witches together.
Five levels of Craniosacral Therapy through Dynamic Body Balancing taught by Dr. Carol Phillips.
2011-2015: Oregon College of Oriental Medicine Full time education in east Asian medicine, learning over 365 individual acupuncture points, over 300 individual herbs, around 200 herbal formulas. But these quantities are hardly the point, I became skilled at working with the human body in the context of hands-on healing. I also searched beyond the white washed version of the medicine known as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for the daoist, and animist concepts of Wu shen (five spirits), holism and body as ecosystem.