Chief Woman Informed Officer
Psychotherapist, MA, LPC, NCC, SEP
Lisa Tafolla is an expert on women’s mental health and wellbeing. She is a psychotherapist, coach, meditation and self-compassion teacher, activist, speaker, author and creator of the Woman Informed community.
She is an intersectional feminist with a Mexican father, an English mother, an aging body, an empowered voice that upsets supporters of patriarchal systems and a commitment to social justice.
Lisa is a second-career psychotherapist. She completed her graduate studies in mindfulness-based clinical mental health after spending more than 25 years as an entrepreneur, business leader and communications consultant. Her interest is psychology grew based on her 20-year meditation practice and volunteer work as a meditation teacher. Her interest in women’s issues came after a series of events and spiritual awakenings that brought her to this mission for the universal healing of women.
Lisa has spent the past several years studying the latest research on women’s issues and mental health. As her research evolved, she began to see a convergence of research that when synthesized, pointed towards a science-backed clinical mental health solution to healing from the impact of sexism, misogyny and internalized misogyny. She documented these findings as the Woman Informed Insight approach.
During her business career, she founded a global brand strategy, communications, and PR agency serving the technology industry and served as its CEO for more than 20 years. Working with global teams and traveling extensively, she became increasingly aware of the societal constructs that cause damage to women’s well being. Her work as a communications and branding professional focused on facilitating strategy with C-level executives to analyze and develop strategy for complex technology topics. This talent has translated to her current work as the developer of the Woman Informed Insight approach. She has also served on several organization board of directors, including the Entrepreneur Organization (EO).
Lisa’s psychotherapy orientation is an integrated model that includes a modern psychotherapeutic orientation and a Gestalt therapy philosophy. Her practice methods include exploratory insight-oriented talk therapy, incorporation of empowering mindfulness-based practices and a somatic neuropsychology-based mind-body approach. She has received training in Gestalt Therapy, EMDR, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness-Based Substance Abuse Counseling, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), The Safe & Sound Protocol, Mindful Self-Compassion. She has received her certificate as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) for trauma healing.
Lisa is a certified mindfulness meditation teacher having completed an extensive training program with the Awareness Training Institute at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center led by teachers Jack Kornfield, PhD and Tara Brach, PhD. She is also a Dharma teacher with the Insight Meditation Society of Colorado.