True healing and growth requires depth, embodiment, and courage.
We built the training we wished existed.
Suzanne Hanna spent 30 years as a licensed psychotherapist before admitting a hard truth: the traditional model — diagnose, manage symptoms, teach coping skills — wasn't enough for the clients sitting in front of her. Insight wasn't translating into lasting change. Something deeper was being asked for, and her training hadn't prepared her to meet it.
So she built the training that had been missing — for herself, and for every practitioner who has sat at that same edge.
OUR MISSION
We are living in a global crisis of disconnection, unresolved trauma, and loss of meaning. At the same time, many gifted practitioners—coaches, therapists, healers, and guides—feel constrained by outdated frameworks that overlook the body, the nervous system, the relational field, the soul, and the shadow.
As our understanding of healing and human development deepens, one truth becomes clear: insight alone is not enough. Lasting transformation requires embodiment and integration—the capacity to live the truth, power, and wisdom uncovered through healing. It calls for integrity in relationship, nervous system awareness, and courageous contact with the parts of ourselves that have been exiled, suppressed, or shamed. These parts are not obstacles to growth; they carry essential intelligence and untapped gifts that long to be expressed in daily life.
Somatic and depth-oriented approaches—shadow work, nervous system regulation, parts work, relational practice, and nature-based pathways—have consistently shown themselves to be among the most effective foundations for sustainable, real-world change.
Our mission is to create a rigorous, trauma-informed, and deeply embodied training pathway for practitioners who are called to walk alongside others with skill, humility, and ethical clarity. We train coaches and helping professionals to work with complexity, shadow, and the full spectrum of the human experience—without bypassing, pathologizing, or diminishing the innate wisdom of the psyche.
At the Shadow Coaching Institute, we are not interested in producing technicians of transformation. We are devoted to cultivating grounded, self-aware practitioners who can hold depth, navigate nuance, and facilitate meaningful change—within themselves, in relationship, and in the world.
Honoring the Whole Human
This is the foundation everything we teach is built on: people are not single-system problems. Our training teaches you to work across psychological depth, somatic intelligence, relational awareness, and meaning-making — so you can meet the whole person in front of you, not just the part that talks.
MEET OUR TEAM
Andrea Arledge
Contributing founder
Andrea Arledge is a Master Therapeutic Shadow Coach and facilitator for the Shadow Coaching Institute Certification Programs. Drawing on 16 years as a Registered Nurse and extensive training in depth psychology, energy work, and business strategy, she specializes in helping female entrepreneurs reclaim what she calls their Golden Shadow—the gifts, authority, and worthiness often hidden behind fear of visibility. Her trauma-informed approach integrates Jungian shadow work with practical business application, addressing the psychological barriers that keep talented women undercharging, over-delivering, and staying small. Andrea understands that money stories, worthiness wounds, and visibility fears aren’t resolved through strategy alone—they require a descent into the psyche and the integration of fragmented parts.
Suzanne Hanna LCSW-R
Founder
Suzanne Hanna, LCSW-R is a licensed psychotherapist, author, and transformational guide with over 30 years of clinical experience specializing in trauma recovery, depth psychology, and embodied healing. She is the founder and creator of The Wilderness Walk™, a high-end personal development platform offering immersive programs and life-changing journeys, and the Shadow Coaching Institute, where she trains therapists, coaches, and helping professionals in Therapeutic Shadow Coaching. Suzanne’s work integrates trauma-informed care, shadow work, experiential practices, and nature-based wisdom to support profound personal and professional transformation. Her approach is grounded in decades of clinical practice and shaped by lived experience, including a 1,000-mile solo walk across the country undertaken as a path of healing and self-reclamation. She is known for her depth, integrity, and commitment to facilitating meaningful, lasting change.
Ash Schoep
Contributing founder
Ash Schoep is a Master Therapeutic Shadow Coach and facilitator working at the intersection of psychology, leadership, and the everyday courage of becoming real with ourselves and one another. Rooted in scholarship, training, and rigorous personal practice in depth psychology, trauma healing, somatics, contemplative traditions, and tantric philosophy, she has spent 15 years leading transformational work across organizations, cultures, and continents. She has led strategy and program development for mission-driven organizations and one of the world's leading inner development schools, co-founded the Shadow Coaching Institute, and helped build international nonprofits dedicated to trauma healing and social and environmental leadership. Ash helps people bridge the inner and outer journey, revealing the capacity, courage, and compassion already waiting within them so they can bring that aliveness into how they lead, love, and build.