About

Amelia A. Free, MSW, LCSW, LMT, is a counseling astrologer, former psychotherapist, published author, fine artist, photographer and bodywork therapist.  In addition to her astrology practice, she conducts workshops on the dynamic understanding of taoist chakra systems, tantra, non-hierarchical group dynamics, movement integration, writing, art  and authentic relationship. She teaches taoist martial, meditative and medicinal art, core body awareness and kinesthetic integration classes.

Amelia studied political theory at Mt. Holyoke College and received her Master’s Degree in clinical social work from Smith College School for Social Work.  She is the former Clinical Director of both the Sexual Abuse Treatment Team and the Family Therapy Team within the Department of Child Psychiatry at Boston Medical Center.  She has been qualified, and testified, as an expert witness in these areas in civil court.  Amelia has lectured nationally on the subjects of spirituality, resilience, stress and trauma at a number of institutions, including Harvard Divinity School and Boston University Schools of Medicine and Psychology.

Though a former psychotherapist, Amelia’s inquiries into the world at large at this point have moved away from pathologizing the individual to that of asking the questions of a cultural psychologist:  what is it within our cultural/social/economic construct that requires individuals to behave in the ways that they do?  She believes that authentic expression of the self is deeply distorted by those requirements of conformity and seeks to find ways in which the individual can free him/herself from them in order to to live a personally, spiritually and emotionally fulfilling life.  Not an easy task in our consumeristic/capitalistic idea of “normal” relationships.  Yes, though many call it “the norm,”  our way of being as defined by those larger structures is hardly “normal” at all.

Amelia was trained in the meta-physical arts, astrology, tarot, palmistry, hand-writing interpretation and Jungian dream analysis as a child and adolescent by her own mother, who was, in reality, a shaman masquerading as an upper-middle class housewife.  In addition, influenced and guided by her father, a pediatric surgeon, Amelia also completed studies in the hard physical sciences, including inorganic and organic chemistry, biology and microbiology, mathematics, anatomy and physiology and pathology.

Amelia has maintained a life-long interest in comparative religion/philosophy and has developed an observational and practical expertise in tibetan buddhism, indigenous wisdom, christianity, hinduism, sufism, new age-ism and entheogenism.  Amelia first engaged with native american peoples as a domestic exchange student to the Acoma Indian reservation in 1977.  She has also lived with a teacher/elder of the Chumash tradition, Hua Anwa, in Southern California.

Amelia is also a professionally-trained actress and Taiko drummer and performed with Words Move Theater Company and Odaiko New England, respectively, in Boston.  Within that work, she extensively studied Alexander Technique and many other movement modalities designed to free the self into authentic expression.  As a former competitive athlete in long-distance running, triathlons, tennis, rowing and soccer, she has an acute understanding of the wisdom that is gleaned from the kinesthetic awareness of the world around us.

Amelia also has been a political activist and theorist since the late 1970’s and has lived for extended periods in the San Francisco Bay Area, the  East Coast, Europe and South America.  When not traveling, she resides in Northern New Mexico.