Local psychotherapist and author Lisa Iversen reads from and signs her book, “Ancestral Blueprints: Revealing Invisible Truths in America’s Soul,” at Eastsound’s Darvill’s Bookstore on Thursday, Oct. 14 at 7 p.m.

Iversen’s psychotherapy practice has been based in the Pacific Northwest since 1993.

“This book contains my reflections on psychotherapy, truth, ancestry, tribe, and democracy,” Iversen said. “Many who seek therapy to heal their own pain also hope to heal wounded family networks. This hope contains the invisible, often unacknowledged truth that our lives are deeply affected by events that took place in earlier generations.  This book offers a compassionate framework for observing and interacting with life, inspired by our ancestral blueprints.”

Iversen specializes in a healing approach that works with multi-generational family experiences called Systemic Family Constellations. She is among the first generation of constellation practitioners and has facilitated hundreds of groups using this approach since 1999. The book’s themes were inspired by her work across the United States over the last decade.

“As I explored Systemic Constellations and worked with diverse populations, my intuitions led to an expanded awareness of the need for healing in American culture. I could increasingly see that the difficulties people described in my office were not only individual problems; they mirrored the collective unacknowledged American experience. I began to see a connection between our American quest for psychological health and the unacknowledged traumatic truths of our country’s history. Emphasis on the individual experience of shame, guilt, perfectionism, communication, and abuse are in resonance with America’s earliest immigrant, colonial history.”

Lisa Iversen received her Masters in Social Work from the University of Washington in 1992 and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Her practice is based in Bellingham.