About Dr. Salvia Artman 

​​Why I Practice Therapy Outdoors​

 

I believe healing is relational and ecological. We heal in connection with others, with the land, and with the natural rhythms that help regulate and restore us. Practicing therapy outdoors invites these relationships into the therapeutic process while creating space for a deeper kind of reflection that includes the body, the senses, and the world around us.

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Education​

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I hold a PhD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Utah, with a focus in Ecopsychology, the intersection of mental health and the natural environment. My clinical training includes a rigorous doctoral internship in health service psychology at Duke University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a focus on healing trauma. This training has equipped me to work with a wide range of concerns using evidence-based practices tailored to each individual's unique needs and life experiences.​​

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Research​

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My research explores how identity, culture, and lived experience shape our relationship with the natural world. I’m particularly interested in how systems like family, community, and larger structures of power and inequity influence the ways we connect or disconnect from nature, and how that impacts our mental and emotional well-being. This lens also helps guide my work at Kona Outdoor Therapy, where I understand that healing is often intertwined with our environment, our relationships, and the larger systems we live within.

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Outside of Therapy

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If I’m not in session, I’m probably playing in the ocean. As a free diver, I move through the water by staying in relationship with my breath, attuning to my body's signals, finding steadiness in uncertainty, and being present with what arises beneath the surface. These same qualities — presence, attunement, and openness — are at the heart of how I show up in therapy.