Insight Family Therapy Group, Inc.

Insight Family Therapy Group, Inc. Psychotherapy practice for couples, individuals, groups & families. Additional offerings include trauma informed yoga & somatic groups.

Specialities inclide: Somatic, Gestalt, Perinatal, Eating Disorders, Emotionally Focused Couples, EMDR & Yoga Therapy. Insight Family Therapy Group is a psychotherapy practice offering mental health services to: individuals, couples, and families. Areas of speciality are: eating disorders, trauma, anxiety, dissociative disorders and depression. This practice uses a variety of techniques and treatment modalities. These include: relational Gestalt therapy, EMDR therapy, and exposure based methods. Mary Ortenburger is EMDR certified and an approved EMDR consultant, a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist (CEDS) and supervisor (CEDS-S). She is also a certified Gestalt therapist and runs a consultation group for therapists seeking certification. Mary Ortenburger, LMFT, owner of Insight Family Therapy Group, is a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) and actively training as a Certified Trauma Informed Yoga Therapist.

I am so excited to share that I am now an official CAMFT-Approved Continuing Education Provider! This means licensed psy...
11/13/2025

I am so excited to share that I am now an official CAMFT-Approved Continuing Education Provider!

This means licensed psychotherapists in California (LMFTs and LCSWs) can now receive continuing-education hours through my Trauma-Informed Yoga for Healing training — a course designed to bridge the clinical and somatic worlds.

This program blends:
• Trauma theory, neuroscience, and polyvagal principles
• Somatic Experiencing and psychodrama foundations
• Yoga therapy and movement-based regulation practices
• Practical tools for integrating the body into the healing process

It’s also open to yoga teachers and yoga therapists who want to deepen their trauma-informed lens and learn how to support clients and students through nervous-system-based work. I will also be working on developing more programs geared for mental health professionals in the field.

My goal has always been to bring mind-body integration to both the therapy room and the mat — and being a CAMFT-approved provider allows me to offer this work in a way that’s both clinically sound and experientially grounded.

CE information and registration details will be available soon (via Momence and my website).
Provider #: 1001234

11/12/2025

Feeling foggy, unmotivated, or unable to focus after emotional abuse isn’t laziness—it’s your brain in survival mode. Many clients I see describe feeling “stupid” or “slow” after years of abuse. The sluggishness they experience, along with difficulties in memory and learning new skills, isn’t a sign of low intelligence—it’s a protective adaptation of the brain to prolonged psychological distress.
Chronic emotional abuse keeps the HPA axis overactivated, flooding the body with stress hormones and reshaping neural circuits: reduced prefrontal cortex efficiency (focus and planning), stress-sensitive hippocampal changes (memory and learning), and heightened amygdala reactivity (threat detection).
That “mental fog” reflects a nervous system prioritizing safety over productivity. It’s not a character flaw—it’s neurobiology. Healing begins by restoring cues of safety.

Audio
References:
Teicher, M. H., & Samson, J. A. (2016). Annual research review: Enduring neurobiological effects of childhood abuse and neglect. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(3), 241–266. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12507

Jedd, K., Hunt, R. H., Cicchetti, D., Hunt, E., Cowell, R. A., Rogosch, F. A., Toth, S. L., & Thomas, K. M. (2015). Long-term consequences of childhood maltreatment: Altered amygdala functional connectivity. Development and Psychopathology, 27(4 Pt 2), 1577–1589. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579415000954

Smith, K. E., & Pollak, S. D. (2020). Early life stress and development: Potential mechanisms for adverse outcomes.Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 12(1), 34.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s11689-020-09337-y

Ibrahim, P., Almeida, D., Nagy, C., & Turecki, G. (2021). Molecular impacts of childhood abuse on the human brain.Neurobiology of Stress, 15, 100343. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2021.100343

Bremner, J. D. (2006). Traumatic stress: Effects on the brain. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 8(4), 445–461. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2006.8.4/jbremner

Healing from complex trauma isn’t linear — it’s cyclical.A common concern I hear from clients is that they’re “going bac...
11/11/2025

Healing from complex trauma isn’t linear — it’s cyclical.

A common concern I hear from clients is that they’re “going backward,” not making progress, or not healing fast enough when old emotions or symptoms re-emerge. But this isn’t regression — it’s part of the process. The stages of healing, much like the stages of grief, are cyclical. We revisit them as the nervous system expands its capacity for safety, connection, and integration.

You don’t move through the stages of healing once and never look back. You move between them again and again as your nervous system learns to feel safe, process, and connect in new ways.

Research in trauma recovery (Herman, van der Kolk, Porges, Levine, Ogden) shows that healing follows three core phases — stabilization, processing, and reconnection — but these are not fixed steps. They’re states of regulation your system moves through depending on stress, support, and capacity.

When the nervous system senses safety, it allows deeper processing.
When stress increases, it naturally returns to stabilization.
This isn’t regression — it’s self-protection and integration.

In somatic terms, the body oscillates between activation and regulation — a process called pendulation. Each cycle helps expand your window of tolerance and strengthen neural pathways of safety.

So when you find yourself “back where you started,” look closer.
You’re not failing; you’re reinforcing safety.
Each return to grounding increases your system’s capacity to stay present with what once felt unbearable.

Healing isn’t a straight climb — it’s a spiral that revisits familiar ground from a higher level of awareness.
Progress isn’t about never looping back; it’s about looping back with more choice, compassion, and coherence.

They went upside down — and came out glowing. ✨Yesterday’s inversion workshop was incredible — so much courage, trust, a...
11/10/2025

They went upside down — and came out glowing. ✨

Yesterday’s inversion workshop was incredible — so much courage, trust, and positive energy in the room. Everyone went beyond their comfort zone, exploring advanced wall-supported poses with grace and laughter. 🧘‍♀️

I’m so proud of this group for showing up with such open hearts and strong bodies — the way you supported one another truly reflected what yoga on the wall is all about.

Our next inversion workshop will be in January, and it’s already posted on the schedule! 🌟

We’ll also have Wall Yoga classes throughout December and January, so you can keep practicing and building your strength, confidence, and balance leading up to the next workshop.

Come hang with us — literally! 😉
Link in bio through Momence.

Photos shared with permission.

Thank you to for all you taught me! This was the best class I’ve had teaching. ❤️

And thank you, for joining with friends! ❤️

Healing C-PTSD does not mean reliving every memory. It means restoring the capacity for safety, connection, and regulati...
11/09/2025

Healing C-PTSD does not mean reliving every memory. It means restoring the capacity for safety, connection, and regulation.

Decades of trauma research (Judith Herman, 1992 / 2015; van der Kolk, 2014; Porges, 2011; Levine, 1997; Ogden & Fisher, 2015) show that recovery unfolds in three overlapping stages—each supported by evidence-based and body-based modalities:

1. Stabilization and Safety
The first stage focuses on regulating the nervous system and establishing a sense of safety—both internally and externally.
Modalities that support this phase include Somatic Experiencing, trauma-informed yoga, DBT, mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding practices.
The goal is to help the body learn that the present is safer than the past.

2. Processing and Integration
Once stabilization is reliable, the work turns toward integrating traumatic memories without overwhelm.
Approaches such as EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Somatic Experiencing, Psychodrama, trauma-focused CBT, and body-oriented processing help transform traumatic memories into coherent and tolerable experiences.
The goal is to make sense of what happened while staying connected to the present moment.

3. Reconnection and Growth
The final stage involves rebuilding relationships, purpose, and identity beyond trauma.
Modalities that support this phase include relational therapy, group work, yoga therapy, psychodrama, creative expression, and community engagement—each fostering trust, compassion, and embodiment.
The goal is to move toward connection and meaning, not simply symptom reduction.

Healing from complex trauma is not linear. It is cyclical, relational, and deeply somatic.
If therapy has not seemed to “work,” you may simply be in a different phase of healing.
Your nervous system heals in sequence, not on command.

PTSD and C-PTSD are often used interchangeably, but they’re not the same.⠀PTSD can develop after a single traumatic even...
11/08/2025

PTSD and C-PTSD are often used interchangeably, but they’re not the same.
⠀
PTSD can develop after a single traumatic event or after repeated exposures to overwhelming situations — the difference is that there was usually a sense of before and after.
⠀
C-PTSD develops from prolonged, inescapable trauma, often in early life or within relationships where safety and choice were absent. It changes not just memory, but identity, attachment, and the body’s baseline for threat.
⠀
Here’s the challenge: C-PTSD isn’t yet recognized in the DSM-5.
It is recognized by the World Health Organization in the ICD-11 (code 6B41) — but the U.S. still uses ICD-10, so it isn’t a billable diagnosis here (yet).
⠀
That gap matters. Because when we can’t name it accurately, people are often misdiagnosed or treated for symptoms instead of the deeper wound.
⠀
C-PTSD should be in the DSM because it validates lived experience, clarifies treatment direction, and supports the long-term, relational, and somatic work true healing requires.
⠀
Healing complex trauma isn’t about “getting back” to who you were — it’s about learning safety for the first time.
⠀

11/08/2025

When you’ve survived chaos, calm can feel foreign.
The body often confuses intensity with intimacy—because for so long, activation was connection.

What feels familiar isn’t always what’s safe.
That pull back toward old pain is not evidence of failure, but the nervous system’s attempt to return to what it knows.
Trauma imprints patterns of protection that once ensured survival—hypervigilance, self-abandonment, over-functioning, or mistaking instability for love.

Healing asks something new of us.
It asks us to pause when the body wants to repeat.
To choose regulation over reenactment.
To protect the part of you that made it out—the one who learned that safety is quiet, steady, and earned through consistency, not chaos.

Audio

Internalized disbelief is one of the deepest legacies of relational trauma.When love depended on silence or compliance, ...
11/07/2025

Internalized disbelief is one of the deepest legacies of relational trauma.
When love depended on silence or compliance, the body learned to mistrust its own messages.

This isn’t self-sabotage — it’s self-protection that never got updated.
Healing means allowing sensations, feelings, and truth to coexist again —
without fear that they’ll cost you connection.

—
For survivors learning to trust their bodies again.

11/04/2025

I’ve admired for so long—
her creativity, her grace, her way of making the wall feel like poetry in motion.

When I realized I couldn’t make her group training,
I had a wild idea…
to fly to Singapore for a private instead.

What I didn’t expect was how much I’d feel.
How much I’d learn beyond technique.
How deeply I’d be touched by her presence.

I came to learn.
I ended up remembering what it means to come home to myself.

So much gratitude to Jimin—for her wisdom, her warmth, and the reminder that teaching is always a two-way exchange.

Thank you, Singapore.
Can’t wait to come back… maybe for chair teacher training next time.

Here’s the thing about yoga.We don’t practice yoga just to make beautiful shapes, to be fit, or to be flexible. Yes, yog...
11/04/2025

Here’s the thing about yoga.

We don’t practice yoga just to make beautiful shapes, to be fit, or to be flexible. Yes, yoga can give us those things—but ultimately, we practice for the heart. For the soul.

I’ve been in Singapore the past four days training in advanced yoga wall techniques, yet I hadn’t practiced for myself until today—beyond the training (which is not the same as a personal practice). To be completely honest, I’ve also been hard on myself this trip—for small, silly shortcomings. It’s a familiar pattern, one that tends to show up often, but grows louder when I’m out of my element. I try to regain control by judging myself—my body, my abilities, and the ways I fall short.

During training today, I joined a yoga wall class with my teacher. As we began, she reminded us to tune out of the thinking mind and into the deep wisdom of the body and the heart. By the end of the sequence, I found myself on the verge of tears—tears of release, of softening, of returning to myself after days of mental tightening.

One of my somatic teachers often says that reconnecting to the body means returning to the part of us that has held us since the beginning—the body we grew within, that has carried us through every season of life. When we focus on imperfections, we forget that the body is our home, our first caregiver, our anchor in the world.

Yoga brings us back to that truth—to the body as the seat of safety, wisdom, and soul.

I’m so grateful to —not only for all she has taught me so far, but for her words and presence that brought me back to myself. In her words: “We surrender our thinking brains to the deep wisdom of the heart and the body.”

And this is your gentle reminder: step out of the thinking mind, and back into your body—the part of you that never leaves.

Sending love. ❤️‍🩹

Let’s stop calling it a serotonin imbalance.It’s a nervous-system adaptation.When we experience trauma, the body doesn’t...
11/03/2025

Let’s stop calling it a serotonin imbalance.
It’s a nervous-system adaptation.

When we experience trauma, the body doesn’t simply “run out” of serotonin — it reshapes how serotonin systems work.

Chronic stress changes how serotonin is produced, released, and received across the brain. These shifts affect the amygdala (fear), hippocampus (memory), and prefrontal cortex (regulation) — keeping the nervous system primed for threat, even when the danger is over.

New studies show trauma can alter serotonin-transporter genes (SLC6A4) through methylation, and shift receptor sensitivity that impacts how we process stress and safety. It’s not a deficit — it’s an adaptation for survival.

Healing doesn’t only happen “top-down.” Practices that restore safety and regulation from the body up — breath, movement, rest, connection, and trauma-informed therapy — help restore serotonergic balance.

Not a chemical deficit. A rewiring for safety.






References (recent & peer-reviewed):
1. Womersley, J. S., Stein, D. J., & Harvey, B. H. (2023). Molecular neurobiology of post-traumatic stress disorder: the role of serotonin and stress circuits. Molecular Neurobiology, PMC10579657.
2. Campos, A. I. et al. (2024). Serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4) methylation and trauma exposure predict stress reactivity. Psychoneuroendocrinology, PMID 38671329.
3. Zhang, Y. et al. (2023). Serotonin receptor plasticity in resilience and stress-related disorders. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, PMID 38477031.
4. Yehuda, R. et al. (2022). Stress neurobiology and gene regulation in trauma-related disorders. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
5. Carhart-Harris, R. L. & Nutt, D. J. (2017). Serotonin and brain function: a tale of two receptors. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 31(9), 1091-1120.

🧘‍♀️ Turn Your World Upside DownInversion Class | Saturday, November 9 | 9:30–11:00 a.m.at Insight Yoga Therapy StudioTh...
10/29/2025

🧘‍♀️ Turn Your World Upside Down

Inversion Class | Saturday, November 9 | 9:30–11:00 a.m.
at Insight Yoga Therapy Studio

The Yoga Wall offers a safe, supported way to explore the power of inversions — whether it’s your first time going upside down or you’re refining an existing practice.

Inversions invite us to shift perspective, rebalance the nervous system, and build inner trust. Supported by the wall, you’ll experience decompression of the spine, increased circulation, and a renewed sense of vitality — all while staying grounded and safe.

This class blends somatic awareness, gentle preparation, and guided wall work to help you discover how inversions can be both stabilizing and freeing.

✨ Open to all levels — from curious beginners to advanced practitioners seeking deeper embodiment.

🪷 Pre-registration required
📍 Insight Yoga Therapy Studio, Claremont
🕤 9:30–11:00 a.m. | Saturday, November 9

Address

219 North Indian Hill Boulevard Suite 201
Claremont, CA
91711

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 4:30pm
Tuesday 8am - 3:30pm
Wednesday 8am - 3:30pm
Thursday 8am - 4:30pm
Friday 8am - 4:30pm

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