Our Team

Brittany McManamey

Attachment + Trauma Resolution Specialist

Through Somatic Experiencing® and Dynamic Attachment Re-Patterning experience®, I support my clients towards ending cycles of feeling stuck and re-discovering the joy, aliveness and ease that is our human heritage.

Attachment + Trauma Resolution Specialist, Transformational Coach 

James Nepenthe

I work with the body in order to access the unconscious — to get directly to the core of what causes people to suffer. And beyond that, to help them discover what's been waiting underneath the suffering all along.

To learn more, visit jamesnepenthe.com

Hi, I’m Brittany

I’m a Attachment + Trauma Resolution Specialist and Resilience Trainer, focusing on nervous system regulation, attachment repair and trauma + stress healing that centers the body.

Through Somatic Experiencing® and Dynamic Attachment Re-Patterning experience®, I support my clients towards ending cycles of feeling stuck and re-discovering the joy, aliveness and ease that is our human heritage.

Everything I offer are insights through my own healing journey, guided mentorship, and training. I am passionate about offering healing services using modalities that actually work because I know the feeling and vulnerability of something needing to change and nothing making a difference. Somatic Experiencing is, in my opinion, the best integration modality I have come across which is why I offer it, mixed in with other modalities that I have also found incredibly powerful. Not only have I trained in Somatic Experiencing, a 3-year long intensive training, getting personally mentored by one of the lead faculty internationally, I now have assisted and supported 30+ trainings for psychotherapists and other healers on learning this modality too.

I am excited and passionate about sharing these modalities with others. I constantly train and learn more to offer any one I work with the highest quality support with leading edge practices and modalities.

More than anything, I hope to let people know that things can change, they can shift. Our dysregulation is not a life sentence, and it is an honor to support and bear witness to each of my inspiring clients as they transform their difficulties into aliveness.

Gratitude to my lineage, and the innumerable beings that have touched my life.

Brittany McManamey, SEP, DARe

Trainings, etc.

  • Somatic Experiencing 3-Year Professional Training (SEP)- Somatic Experiencing International

  • Dynamic Attachment Re-Patterning Experience (DARe) Professional Training, 2021 Trauma Solutions w/ Dr. Diane Poole Heller, taught by Alicen Halquist

  • Ongoing Consultation with Debra Clydesdale, SEP Faculty and Daniel Vose, DARe Trainer and Trauma Resolution Specialist

  • Yoga of Intimacy: Mentorship with Londin Angel Winters and Justin Patrick Pearce, Ongoing

  • Mindfulness Mind-Fitness Trainer (MMFT) , Ongoing

  • Radical Aliveness Laboratory for Leaders, Montreal CA 2024-2025

  • Biodynamic Cranio-Sacral Training w/ Body Intelligence, Shelburne VT 2023, Ongoing

  • Sexual Trauma: Spiritual Transformation + Somatic Experiencing 2022 w/ Dr. Diane Poole Heller

  • The Transformative Power of Eros w/ Kimberly Ann Johnson + Peter Levine found of Somatic Experiencing 2022

  • Where to Start? Somatic Experiencing Training w/ Twig Wheeler, 2023

  • Crisis Stabilization and Safety (CSS) Pilot Facilitator Training, 2021 Somatic Experiencing International

  • Crisis Stabilization and Safety (CSS) Training, 2022 Somatic Experiencing International

  • Power of Embodied Transformation: Somatic Coaching, 2020 Strozzi Institute

  • Radical Aliveness Immersion w/ Ann Bradney, 2021 Radical Aliveness Institute

  • The Event w/ Fleet Maull + Khandro Kelly, 2019 The Event Training

  • The Work that Reconnects Facilitator Training, 2019 Earth Leadership Cohort

  • Somatic Psychotherapy Certificate Program, 2020 Antioch University

  • University of Vermont B.S. in Environmental Studies, Ecopsychology Concentration

  • Therapeutic Communciation, 2022 California Institute of Integral Studies

  • Movement Approaches in Somatic Psychotherapy, 2022 California Institute of Integral Studies

  • The Body: Experienced, Conceptualized, and Verbalized, 2022 California Institute of Integral Studies

  • Human Development, 2022 California Institute of Integral Studies

  • Embodiment Studies, (2 semesters) 2020-2021 Goddard Graduate Institute

Other Experience

  • Silent Meditation Retreats from 6 weeks to 3 months, Forest Refuge Barre MA- Guiding Teacher Rodney Smith

  • Assistant + Training Coordinator for Somatic Experiencing Professional 3-yr Trainings, 2021-Ongoing Somatic Experiencing International

  • MMFT in Ukraine for Ukrainian Professionals and Mental Health Workers, 2024 Ongoing Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training

  • Hurricane Ian: State Emergency Response Team (SERT) for Mental Health and Wellness, 2022 Capacity Path in Southwest FL

  • Resilience Trainer, 2022-2023 Project Hope International Humanitarian Aid. Training 75+ organizations in resiliency post Hurricane Ian.

  • Crisis Stabilization and Safety (CSS) Training Program: Training Material + Content Development, Ongoing Somatic Experiencing International

  • Hurricane Ida Response Team, 2021 Somatic Experiencing International

  • Morning Practice Meditation Teacher, 2020- Ongoing

  • iBme Meditation Retreat Mentor for Teens, 2018-Ongoing Inward Bound Mindfulness Education

  • Nature Connection Mentor and Nature Connection Program Development at Crow’s Path in Burlington, VT

  • Hospice Care, 2016-2018 McClure Miller Respite House

  • WasteLess, 2014, Auroville, India

  • Living Room Conversations Facilitator, Waterbury VT

Retreats

I have been engaging in long-term silent meditation retreats, from 10-days to 3-months for over a decade, primarily in Buddhist and Non-Dual traditions. This has informed my work to always hold the awareness of each individual’s inviolate nature of love.

Personal Pieces

  • The Transformation of Aliveness, 2020.

  • Discovery of the Underlying Goodness, 2020.

  • Healing our Defenses: Trauma, Spirituality and Embodiment, 2021.

  • Expanding Attachment Theory: Connecting to the Collective, Remembering the Web, 2021.

My Path

I started sitting silent meditation retreats at 15 and became consumed by one question: what actually resolves suffering? That question took me to Central America at 18, where I spent a year working with at-risk youth in Honduras. It shattered everything I thought I knew about the world and about myself, and set me on the path I'm still on.

I dedicated my twenties to intensive practice — long silent retreats, ordination as a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka, plant medicine ceremony in Peru, and a deepening conviction that healing and awakening are not separate endeavors. They are one path. I trained under Rodney Smith at the Insight Meditation Society — one of the few Western teachers who spoke explicitly about the reality and accessibility of awakening, not as theory but from his own direct experience. Rodney eventually empowered me as a dharma teacher. His teaching became the backbone of my contemplative path. The body is the gateway to the truth that lies beyond our neurotic mental activity, and spiritual transformation isn't possible when the nervous system is still at war with itself.

In my early twenties, I discovered somatic work and it changed everything. After ten years of talk therapy, my first Somatic Experiencing session showed me what's actually possible when you work with the body directly. The amount of energy it unlocked, the material it resolved — it was a stark contrast to everything I'd done before. I immediately began training.

Since then, I've trained extensively in Somatic Experiencing, Dynamic Attachment Repatterning, Radical Aliveness group process, Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training, the Yoga of Intimacy, and intensive shadow work through The Initiation. I now serve as an assistant trainer in several of these modalities. But the modalities aren't the point. The point is what they give access to — the core of a person's suffering, and the ground of who they actually are beneath it.

What I Bring Into The Room

I'm highly trained and I continue to train. I receive regular sessions myself. I've sought out the most reputable teachers I could find and have been taken on as an assistant by many of them — not because I need the credential, but because depth and integrity are a priority for me in a field where many people offer this type of work without either.

I live an extremely grounded life. I have a relationship that is thriving and legitimately works — in a world where most people struggle to function in relationship. I maintain a healthy, fit lifestyle. I'm passionate about being embodied, being present, and letting that aliveness come through in how I serve.

Training & Credentials

SOMATIC & TRAUMA HEALING

Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP) — 3-year professional training

Ongoing Mentorship under SEI Faculty, Debra Clydesdale (since 2021)

Somatic Experiencing International — Training Assistant (since 2022)

Crisis Stabilization & Safety (CSS) — Lead Trainer, SE International

Dynamic Attachment Repatterning (DARe) Levels 1 & 4; Assistant Trainer — Dr. Diane Poole Heller

Radical Aliveness — Ann Bradney

Somatic Coaching — The Strozzi Institute

Embodiment Lab with Ann Bradney— Year-long training (2024–2025)

Lead Resiliency Trainer — Project HOPE (Hurricane Ian disaster response)

Principles in Healing Collective Trauma (2020–2021)

Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness — David Treleaven

MINDFULNESS, MEDITATION & DHARMA

506 days of silent retreat, including three 3-month retreats, and two 6-week retreats (Insight Meditation Society & Forest Refuge)

Empowered Dharma Teacher — under Rodney Smith

Ten Fetters Process of Classical Awakening — under Christiane Michelberger & Steffi Mania (ongoing)

Former Ordained Buddhist monk — Sri Lanka (Venerable Dhammajiva, 2015)

Certified Mindfulness Teacher (CMT-P) — Engaged Mindfulness Institute, IMTA-accredited (2015–2017)

Nonviolent Communication — 3-year training (2015–2018)

MMFT Lead Trainer — Dr. Elizabeth Stanley; trained military psychologists & first responders in Ukraine

Advanced Teacher of Presence Training — Eckhart Tolle

Convergent Facilitation Training

The Work That Reconnects — Earth Leadership Cohort

RELATIONSHIP & SACRED INTIMACY

Yoga of Intimacy — Assistant under Justin Patrick Pierce & Londin Angel Winters

Daily sacred intimacy practice — Alpha/Omega polarity framework

GROUP WORK & FACILITATION

The Initiation (formerly The Event) — Assistant to Fleet Maull (since 2019; most recently Feb 2026)

All Kings — Initiate and Assistant; initiatory quests & trainings with justice-impacted men

ManKind Project — IMPACT Course for Young Men, Lead Trainer (2019–ongoing)

Brother's Hearth — Lead Facilitator, Young Men Awake (2020–ongoing)

iBMe — Youth Mentor and Mental Health Support

MMFT Ukraine Project — active-duty military and psychologist training (2022–ongoing)

Lead Instructor — Youth Opportunities Program

Mindfulness Director — Mindfulness Director Initiative (now WholeSchool Mindfulness)

ACTIVISM & SERVICE

At-Risk Youth Facilitator — Hogares Crea, Tegucigalpa, Honduras

Standing Rock Resistance Camp, 2016

Anti-Racist Lead Facilitator — Farm & Wilderness, VT (2016–2017)

Crisis Counselor — Hurricane Ian, SW Florida

Engaging Whiteness Through Critical Contemplative Inquiry — Senior Honors Thesis, UMass Amherst Commonwealth College (2017)

UMass Divest — Successful campaign (2016)

Student Mentor & Anti-Oppression Educator, UMass (2016)

UMass Student Mindfulness Facilitator & Program Lead (2015–2017)

Reclaiming Indigenous Cultural Heritage Institute, Penobscot, ME (2017)

Overnight Staff, Craig's Door Shelter (2018)

Ongoing pro-bono Somatic Experiencing sessions for people without financial means

Ongoing mentorship for young men

About James

I'm a healer, a teacher, a group facilitator, and a practitioner at heart. I work with the body in order to access the unconscious — to get directly to the core of what causes people to suffer. And beyond that, to help them discover what's been waiting underneath the suffering all along.

My work is to help people heal so they can grow up, wake up, and serve fully in their lives. I am working to initiate people into their own power and wisdom — and ultimately into a deeper truth about the nature of their being.

Based in Lincoln, Vermont, I work with individuals, couples, and groups in person and online.

Nepenthe is my name. From the Greek: "that which takes away suffering." It's also my life's work.

To learn more visit jamesnepenthe.com