If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing...

“Spiritual transformation is at hand. As one age is dying and another is being born, the Pacific Institute "warriors" at Age Song are striving to work together as one family in service to the present and future generations. We are answering the call to re-create a community that sustains the needs of the elderly and the dying at the end of their life's journey. Pacific Institute at the Age Song Communities is a learning lab, where appreciative inquiry is the tool for significant positive change in creating innovative principles that enhance the human experience. Creativity, inspiration, resourcefulness and compassion are the key values in making this reality possible for the elderly community”



After dedicating hours of clinical work, and individual support to residents of assisted living facilities, a group of interns came together with a mission: To help create a therapeutic environment at these facilities where they work with the elderly. We called them The Warriors of the Heart.

They understand that in a therapeutic environment people feel safe and supported in living all the different dimensions of who they are, from their joys and pleasures to their illnesses and frailties. Such an environment cares not only for the challenging physicals conditions of the residents but for their emotional, spiritual and psychological needs as well.

To really create that therapeutic environment, the warriors support clinical, medical, administrative staff and caregivers when providing care for the elderly. At the same time, the warriors mentor the new cohort of interns and trainees that come to the Institute by modeling the therapeutic environment approach for them. They serve as liason between the new interns and the residents, they provide consistent care for residents by informing caretakers on overlapping needs.



Corie Ascani

Pacific Institute was a place where I grew as a clinician as well as a person, a human. Human to human is the way you connect to all those around you. It is a place of much diversity and is rich with it's own unique culture. When I look back now, I realize how much I learned and I am so appreciative for the learning opportunity that was given to me.

I am in my third year of graduate school at the American Professional School of Psychology in Alameda. I will be finished with my class work this June '08 and am engulfed in writing my dissertation. I am currently an advanced practicum student working with children K-8 with a wide range of cultures and mental health challenges. I continue to learn more about myself and my patients everyday. I am so thankful that I got such a good foundation at the Pacific Institute.

Christina Bozzini

Christina is a Marriage and Family Therapy Intern with a M.A. in Counseling Psychology and a concentration in Somatics. As part of her body-oriented approach to healing and therapy, Christina is a Certified Massage Therapist and practices Reiki. Her prior experience is in Human Resources and project management. She has worked with the Pacific Institute since January 2004.

“Our mission is to provide the best possible care for our aging. We seek to do this both through innovation, employing the latest techniques in therapy, hospice care, and mental health care; and through intuition, returning to the wisdom of eldership traditions that for centuries have sought to nurture the growth of body, soul, and spirit through the many transitions in life.”

Melissa D'Antoni

“With my heart and Spirit guiding me, will work with my fellow warriors to create a revolutionary experience of creativity and healing for people in their latter stages of life.”

Melissa is a MFT registered intern and is on track to becoming a registered expressive arts therapist. She has a MA in Counseling Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology with a Certificate in Creative Expression/Expressive Arts Therapy. She has additional training in ashtanga yoga, process painting, psychodrama and sand play therapy. Her passion is in integrating creativity and spirituality into her approach and work with clients.

Prior to earning a MA in psychology, Melissa spent 7 years working in Internet marketing. Finding herself bored and unfulfilled, she began to paint again, a passion she had ignored since college. Upon a dramatic return to her creative passion, she decided to leave the corporate world and find a path developing and facilitating creative healing environments for herself and others.

Melissa joins Pacific Institute and Age Song Communities for another year as and intern and coordinator to help implement our first ever, expressive arts therapy program for elders.

Rochelle D'Silva

Rochelle is a graduate of the California Institute of Integral Studies, with a M.A degree in Integral Counseling Psychology. She has lived in San Francisco for 4 years, before which she lived in India and the United Arab Emirates. Being exposed to several cultures and ethnicities, Rochelle has enormous experince working with diverse populations and minorities. She is currently a second year intern at Pacific Institute and is also pursuing her Marraige and Family Therpaist liscence in the state of California. Rochelle is dedicated towards integrating western psychology and eastern spiritualy within the realms of her psychotherapy practice with the elderly.

Chelsea DeMarte

Chelsea DeMarte is a Texas native who relocated to the san Francisco Bay Area to pursue her studies at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. She currently holds a Masters in Counseling Psychology, and has been part of the Pacific Institute for a year. She enjoys using movement and sound when working with the elderly, and can often be spotted dancing and drumming while interacting with residents. She envisions her life,s work as assisting individuals with personal growth and the realization of their innate healing potential while working creatively with the obstacles that are presented in their lives.

“My task as a warrior of the heart is to embrace an unwavering attitude of unconditional love, acceptance, curiosity, and validation regarding every individual's unique experience and expression of reality. While sustaining this understanding without judgment, I will use my quality of presence to facilitate the therapeutic unfolding of the diverse processes that I witness in my elders. In doing so, I will assist them in exploring the meaning and purpose of their lives, and in turn they will pass on to me a sacred perspective of wisdom only gained through their many years. Together, we will deepen our understanding of the gifts that aging has to offer, and ultimately be part of the critical mass which challenges the prevalent ageism that makes up consensus reality.”

Constance Hunt

Constance Hunt has her MA in Marital and Family Therapy and is a Registered Art Therapist (ATR).
She has worked in various facilities: a locked unit for 5150 adolescents, an Adolescent Day Treatment Program, The California School for the Blind, an Elder Women's Support Group and is currently working at two Assisted Living Sites. She has also presented at several conferences and was interviewed for the NPR Program, “Gray Matters: Art and The Brain”.

She is a tapestry weaver whose work has appeared in several publications including FIBERARTS: A Tapestry Handbook and Weaving for Worship. She continues to exhibit locally, nationally, and internationally.

One values training, builds skills and lives intensely.
Each supports the other to work together.
The Warrior's challenges and battles are with forgetfulness, anger, dementia, fear, ignorance, pain, depression, confusion, and aging or compromised bodies.
The Warrior is always present in the moment and sees each day as a gift.
The Warrior faces death daily...it makes one live more honestly.
The Warrior's shields are self-awareness and enlightenment
As a Warrior one is armed with Integrity, Humanness, Empathy, Mindfulness,
Curiosity, and Creativity.
The Heart-Warrior protects and guards the safe place, the therapeutic environment.”


Erin Kuntze

"As a student of clinical psychology, PI offered me the rare opportunity to learn existential, humanistic, process work and expressive arts therapy techniques, connect with and learn from fellow interns with backgrounds in drama therapy, expressive arts therapy, and somatics therapy, and train with Zen Hospice volunteers. The multidisciplinary staff and extraordinary supervision provide unlimited opportunities to learn about the many ways of being with people, all the while emphasizing the importance of working from the heart. Most importantly, the residents of PI living facilities are of the truly special sort, making the work heart-centered and life altering."

Erin is in her fourth year of graduate studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies working toward earning her Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology. She completed her first practicum training at Pacific Institute as a Warrior of the Heart from July 2005 - July 2006, which provided a solid foundation for working with people from all walks of life. She is currently working on her dissertation and seeing clients at the St. James Infirmary in San Francisco.

Amanda Mason

During my time at Pacific Institute, I took advantage of the ample opportunities to learn about the application of Existential theory. In my own life and in the lives of my clients, and through the training, work, and supervision, Pacific Institute fostered deep insights that encouraged greater personal honesty and integrity, expanded reflexivity and stress tolerance, and increased generativity and creativity. As a burgeoning psychologist, I have been inundated with the recognition of how often life is experienced in fractured and disjointed ways. Yet, I feel fortunate to meet my clients' struggles with tools gained from the process work model which was one inspiring result of my practicum experience at Pacific Institute. It is a blessing to be able to help my clients integrate their experiences in a way that fosters peace and self-esteem, that encourages personal and social responsibility, and finally that engenders agency in the creation and experience of harmony in one's own life.

Amanda Mason is in her final year of doctoral training at Argosy University's (Bay Area) APA accredited, Clinical Psychology program. In clinical practice, she has had the opportunity to work with individual and group populations across the developmental lifespan from age five to one hundred. This has included working with children and adolescents living in various residential care settings, women with acute and serious, persistent, mental illness living in transitional housing, survivors of violent crime including families of domestic violence, and the elderly in one of the Bay Area's most unique therapeutic communities. Currently, Amanda is an intern therapist at Santa Rosa Junior College where she embraces the challenges of working with college students of diverse ethnicities and cultures, coming from both rural and urban backgrounds, and who represent the traditional and non-traditional student. Her clinical interests encompass the field of health psychology including eating behavior, sexuality, chronic illness, disabilities, and sleep. She also has research experience in identity issues, gender roles, sexual orientation, trauma, PTSD, and significant life change.