Meet Dr. Bernadette Pivarunas

Founder and Clinical Director

Dr. Pivarunas sees appointments in our Fort Collins and Denver offices.

Previous ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTs

• Visiting Instructor, Naropa University, Somatic Counseling Program

• Behavioral Health Faculty, North Colorado Family Medicine Residency

EDUCATION & TRAINING

• Ph.D. & M.S., Colorado State University

• Fellowship: University of North Carolina, Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders

• Internship: Children's Hospital Colorado, Pediatric Endocrinology and Obstetrics & Gynecology

• Externship: University of Chicago, Adult Eating and Weight Disorders Program

• Publications

  Trained in the following modalities:

• Big-Hearted Embodiment in conjunction with The Body Positive

• Circle of Security Parenting, Facilitator

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Interpersonal Psychotherapy, and Mindfulness

• Comprehensive Bereavement Care

• Crisis Assessment & Intervention

• Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR)

• Imaginal Nurturing

• Intuitive Eating, Certified Counselor

• Ketamine-assisted Psychotherapy in conjunction with the Psychedelic Research & Training Institute

• Pet Loss & Bereavement, Certified Pet Loss Grief Specialist

• Psilocybin Facilitation & Integration in conjunction with InnerTrek

• Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT), Level 2 Clinician

• Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SP), Level 1 Clinician

  Expert testimony provided on eating disorders and developmental trauma.

CULTURAL RESUME

• Paternal grandparents were immigrants. 

• Childhood was marked by geographical, socioeconomic, educational, and relational instability secondary to my parents’ 12-year divorce. 

• Mental illness, including substance abuse, runs in my family. 

• My upbringing was influenced by strict, Roman Catholicism, sexism, racism, and rampant fatphobia. 

• What you might not see looking in: an invisible (chronic) illness, inconsistent access to comprehensive healthcare, neurodivergent, and lived experiences of gender-based violence and traumatic & disenfranchised grief. 

• Anthropologist Dr. Marcia Inhorn describes a “mating gap, in which men characterized by the three e’s - eligible, educated, and equal - are literally missing as potential male partners,” due, in part, to “men’s educational underachievement” and shifting commitments to “friendships, travel, [and] recreation.” As a result, “some of the United States’ most talented women [are forced] into a reproductive waithood well beyond their individual control.”

  Dr. Inhorn’s mating gap and reproductive waithood capture the devastating journey I’ve been on for more than the past decade. While I benefit from heterosexual privilege, it has proven nearly impossible (and at times traumatic) to find an eligible, educated, and equal male partner who desires what I do, marriage and family. Over the last year and a half this journey has included the pursuit of single motherhood by choice via embryo adoption. I have been blessed by two donor families who have come alongside me to make this possible. And, I’ve also been crushed by miscarriage and embryo loss.

  I have a special heart for women for whom dating, partnership, and marriage have been so deeply desired but never realized. And for individuals and families who (long to) become parents via often misunderstood and isolating means, such as sperm, egg, and embryo donation and adoption, single parenthood by choice, and fertility treatment.

• My privilege: White, cis-hetero, educated, citizen, thin, and financially stable. 

• Tremendous gratitude to The Adaway Group for first introducing our practice to the notion of a cultural resume.

• Additionally, I honor the Elders and Ancestors of the Indigenous North and South Americans, Central Africans, and other Indigenous people who have, for thousands of years, maintained the sacred knowledge of plant-based medicines and entheogens. I acknowledge that my presence on this land and my involvement with the psychedelic medicine community is inextricably linked to forced removal, violent assimilation, and genocide of indigenous peoples. I aim to maintain this awareness, hold deep reverence for their ancestral wisdom, and support and amplify the voices and actions of Indigenous peoples and communities. Beatriz Caiuby Labate, Ph.D. perfectly captured this in her words, “in many, many ways, all of us are indebted to Indigenous peoples and their traditions and their knowledge when we are interested in these medicines.”