Kate 1a

Katie Hammond Holtz graduated from the Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.) program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) in 1992. She is a licensed psychologist who formally began practicing meditation in 1986.

In 1991 she became a student of the renowned world-wide teacher Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. In 2002, she received ordination as a member into his lay order. In 2009, she attended her first training with Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, the acclaimed originator of Mindfulness Based Stress Reducion (MBSR), and Saki Santorelli, EdD, then Co-Director of The Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She continued to receive trainings in MBSR at the Center for Mindfulness to become an identified MBSR Teacher.

She has organized and led mindfulness practices at retreats since 2000, including national retreats. In 2010, she began leading mindfulness retreats for health care professionals. Since then she has led more than 15 retreats for health care professionals, training more than 300 health care professionals in mindfulness. Having integrated mindfulness practice and psychotherapy for almost two decades, she has been successful in introducing and adapting mindfulness in medical and outpatient settings for those with medical and clinical disorders. She currently resides in Pittsburgh where she offers mindfulness-based treatments to clients in her private practice.